Skimmer Upgrade Required?

[intarsiabox]

I have been running an Aqua-C Remora on various tanks over the years and it has never produced much skim mate. I've had it on a 25g nano-reef for about two months now and I'm down to about a tablespoon of gunk a week. However I have no algae growing (except a light dusting on the glass every few days) and all corals seem to be happy and growing. I have 2 clowns, 1 coral beauty and a watchman goby for fish, plus a couple peppermint shrimp, hermit crabs and two mexican turbo snails for livestock and about 40lbs of live rock. Lots of soft coral and zoa, 1 med colony of torch coral & frogspawn, 1 large meat coral and a few sps frags. With this bioload should my skimmer be producing a lot more skim mate than it is? I also do weekly 10% water changes with DD H2O salt and have an Aquaclear 70 with carbon and a bag of Chemipure Elite in the chamber.
Any thoughts on a new HOB skimmer? The tank is sitting on the kitchen counter so a sump is not an option (according to my wife). A couple I was thinking of is the Deltec 300, Octopus BH1000 (cheapest), Super Reef Octopus LX1000 and the Warner Marine H1.

Thanks!

[SeaSerpant]

I would assume that if it doesn't produce much skim mate that the tank may be using what it's skimming in it's eco system. Have you ever washed your skimmer? And by having the carbon and chemipure elite will help purify the water which means that the skimmer doesn't have much to skim!

Hope this helps!
Seaserpant

[intarsiabox]

I gave it a good cleaning when I transferred to this tank and it still looks clean on the inside chambers. I do get some gunk on the tube in the collection cup and the bubbles are usually up to the top of the tube but don't seem to roll over into the collection cup very much. Is this due to lack of organic material in the bubbles? I see everyone always showing off their cups full of dark skim mate after only a day or two of running their new skimmers and I'm not getting that. I would like to think that it's just because I don't have much organic material in my water but I don't really know for sure.

[SeaSerpant]

How often do you empty it? I empty my nano remora everyweek and i only get about half full and it's only a pale brown. The colour of the water is relative to how big the collection cup is and the amount of gunk in the water. When a person puts a new skimmer on usually it's because they haven't had one on the tank before and it has a lot to take out.

Thanks
SeaSerpant

[intarsiabox]

I empty it out and clean it up with a bottle brush and sponge every week with my water change. You're probably right about new skimmers on others tanks producing so much because of the need of a skimmer. My best (or worst) week of skimming on this tank only saw about a 1/4" of skim mate in the cup. I only started using Chemipure Elite 2 weeks ago and since then I've been down to almost no skim mate. Maybe I should pass on the skimmer for now and get an MP10 instead! I have a Koralia 2 right now but it produces a little too much flow for this tank and I really want the random flow that a MP10 can give me. Thanks for your thoughts.

[SeaSerpant]

Well i'm glad my advice can be helpful!
Keep up the good work
SeaSerpant