How's your skimmate?

[Lance]

Originally Posted by christyf5

Dry for now, I fluctuate the level of my sump via waterchanges and overdid it a few weeks ago with some "extra" water (miscalculation), the damn skimmer cup was filling in 3 days. I'm just not motivated to clean it that often so I have the sump level lower and its pretty thick.

Christy, don't you find though that when you skim dryer you have to clean the neck more often. All depends on which you dislike more I guess. I don't mind emptying and cleaning the cup but I hate cleaning the neck.

[marie]

I skim fairly wet...for the same reason Lance....I dislike cleaning out sludge. I get about 4 cups of skimmate a day when I have it set where I like it...



..... but my "Otto" top off is lazy and the skimmate isn't always as wet as I'd like

[Lance]

Originally Posted by marie

I skim fairly wet...for the same reason Lance....I dislike cleaning out sludge. I get about 4 cups of skimmate a day when I have it set where I like it...



..... but my "Otto" top off is lazy and the skimmate isn't always as wet as I'd like

Yeah, I get about 3-4 cups a day on the Beckett, but I have a large waste collector so I only have to empty it every 4th day.
Hey, it's summer, "Otto" can slack off a bit.

[hound96]

mine is fairly dark and wet in my vertex IN100 and i clean it out once a week at about a third full

my aqua medic skims very dark and nasty stuff so dry my ETSS is not as dark or half as nasty but I empty the cup once a week on both. I like the Aqua Medic better I don't get any algae in the tank when I use it but with the ETSS I get some HA growth on one rock and no where else, kind of weird I'd say.

Bill

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Skim dry on the 210g Reef & wet on the 120g fowlr. I always scrub down the neck when I empty the collection cup anyways (usually every 4 days or so). Skimming dry is very stinky, especially since I added the NPX pellets to the reef tank. So nasty smelling I have to clean the cup before its full.

[SAMSHUNG]

I own a Red Sea Prizm. Consequently, I get no skimmate.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

Skim dry on the 210g Reef & wet on the 120g fowlr. I always scrub down the neck when I empty the collection cup anyways (usually every 4 days or so). Skimming dry is very stinky, especially since I added the NPX pellets to the reef tank. So nasty smelling I have to clean the cup before its full.

I hear ya. When I started the pellets the skimmate got much darker and smellier within a week. After a couple of months of running the pellets NO3 levels had dropped from 20 to 0. When the NO3 & PO4 levels were reduced the skimmate went back to normal. I'm assuming you will find the same thing after running the pellets for awhile and they do their job.

[coreyskylar]

Thanks this was helpful, i changed my skimmer settings to the wetter side, this is better right?

[fishoholic]

I tend to run a bit more on the dry side. The thick sludge is gross to clean but I can last 4-5 days before having to clean it whereas when I run on the wet side I have to clean it every day, because it fills up so fast.