Wet vs Dry skimming
 

So, I have a new (to me) skimmer and its amazing. Its the Vertex Alpha 170 and its skimming like a monster. There seems to be a very fine line with this skimmer though as far as whether its set to dry or wet skim. At first I thought I'd want a dry skim and when its dry skimming, it does a great job, fills the cup in 5-6 days. When its wet skimming the skim is still pretty dark, a greenish color and very smelly. Fills the cup in 2 days.

So my question is which is better? I feel logically the wet skim is doing a better job, its removing a large cheese wiz jar of skimmate almost daily. My nitrates have dropped, my tank looks great but should I adjust it to dryer skim mate? Are there bennefits?

I've always had smaller skimmers (Cad lights, SWC) so it was never really an issue but this machine working so well I'm starting to wonder what the optimal setting would really be...

Thoughts?

I prefer the wet skim and I just add a little salt water every few days to account for the loss of salt water though the extra skimming. Almost like a mini water change.

Huh, ya guess I should check my salinity.

I wet skim! It’s been great for my tank and the addition of NOPOX allows for some serious gunk to be pulled out. I think that fine balance achieves the best results for most skimmers.

I like to Dry skim, 2 reasons which were mentionsed. I don't like cleaning a cup every couple days and I don't want to add any SW until the WC day. Lol

Dry skim when away from home and a wet skim most other times. Skimmer has never affected salinity ever. First I've ever heard of that. It sure doesn't taste salty haha