I have only seen clamping in my plumbing. But since dosing biomate it has gone. I do know of carbon dosing peeps who said the rock or sand looked dirty from the mulm build up though. But with proper husbandry it shouldn't get to that point

IMO the solution lies in DC controllable pumps. Get a skimmer that is easily oversized, and turn it down until you get a consistent foam head. Problem solved?

Really? The last thing I would ever use is a controllable pump on a skimmer. Over complicates things, adds additional cost that doesn't need to be there, and once set, you probably never have to adjust again.
An appropriately matched skimmer/pump set should already be at the right values and the only tweaking should be air volume and water height.

I know I'm old and set in my ways, but adding features for the sake of adding features is not something I buy into.

Sure Says the guy who's never owned a dc skimmer lol

fwiw dc skimmers are actually cheap for what they are rated to , more so than a lot of the more common AC brand names.


Remember the article on skimmers and how much they actually removed , (less than %20 if i remember correctly ) I believe the reef octopus performed one of the worst yet still a go to skimmer for a lot reefers.So I'm not sure on how good a job our current technology actually is.

Back to the bac.....


While there are bacteria that can and can't be skimmed (see article) the ones that we want are indeed skimmed out ......those rock and surface clinging bacteria everyone speaks of.

But how are they skimmed if they only attach to rock?

My only beef with dc skimmers and dc pumps all together is the crappy lifeline and cheap parts they can have.

Fair enough, but I don't conceptualize the point. Seems odd to want a controllable pump that I don't want to change. Just start with the right sized pump and go.

But, I've been known to be wrong before. Not often, but it happens :razz:

I just have no interest in fiddling with things, I want to plug it in and be done with it.

I do like the idea of the controllable pumps , as I found it very handy to fine tune a good head as well the slow start is a nice feature, but there are also things I don't like either ,so I didn't go dc for my new skimmer either I went the other way.

I def agree get something adequate from the start regardless of the name or style.

One feature that is a must have for me on most any skimmer is a large cup , I hate small cups:)

I'm gonna get flamed for this but oh well, lol in my tank (100 gallons ish) i have naso tangs,blue tang, yellow tang, kole tang, 2 clownfish, 8 green chromis, male& female manderin goby, 3 square anthias, diamond goby, and a handful of hermit crabs and emerald crabs, so pretty heavy bioload. I still do my checks for phosphate (which is 0.02ppm according to the hana checker) and have never really checked for nitrates. I'm using the csc 250 skimmer and it works great for my system, although i think they have discontinued that model :sad: As for the DC pumps they are pretty good pumps, just thier controller power supplies are garbage, and to be honest when I had my dc pump i never once adjusted my pump level.

Chances are, you won't change the pump speed after initial setup as long as your bioload doesn't change. However, the advantage is in that initial tuning, being able to set it perfectly to your bioload. Easier than trying to exactly match a skimmer/pump to your bioload based on manufacturer's recommendations, no?

No :) I find that the water height and air intake are enough to perfectly tune for my needs, so I'd rather not buy a DC pump. More complicated, more stuff to break.