Protein Skimmer question

[Thunderkat]

I have a 50 gallon aquarium with a CPR Dual pak http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=CR1115

and I hear all the time that you need a good skimmer. Is the skimmer I linked considered a "good" skimmer?

Any feedback on this would be much appreciated.


PS-
I was just about to give up on my salt water tank when I looked at it this morning and realized how little algae I had as opposed to when I first started coming here (no more mats of algae floating around, only have to clean my front glass once a week now instead of every day).

[mhaynes01]

i have a CPR bak-pak 2 with the bio-bale. it works great for my 29 soi assume it would be good enough for your 50 gallon,

what kind of pumps are you using for the skimmer? i have a rio 800.

[Thunderkat]

Just the ones it came with. I have never thought about putting anything more powerful on them.

[Thunderkat]

Don't use the Rio 800 power head with those filters.

I found this under manufacturer's website. http://www.cprusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6274&sid=485de27308b59036d6f8a02ac 05b0e35

I see that Rio sells a 800 RVT pump. The gph is minor, 211 gph for the Rio 800RVT vs 200 gph for the Rio 600 RVT.
Is the upgrade to the Rio 800 RVT recommended and will it increase performance even if only slightly?

This is for the SR2.

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Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 10:40 am Post subject:

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It wil actually decrease efficiency. The 800 pumps more water than the 600, but the same amount of air. The loss of air as a percentage will decrease the efficiency.
The Maxi-Jet 1200 will work more efficiently than the Rio 600, I have an SR2 in my office runnin gon the Maxi.

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[astrong]

Upgrade the Rio's. They like to burn out and have a copper coil that leaches toxic filth into your aquarium. MaxiJets are a better alternative.

[Thunderkat]

I just ordered 2 of the maxi-jets with the attachment needed for the bak pak filters.

http://amekaaquatics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MAXI1200

Maxi-Jet 1200 Powerhead -290 gph
Rio 600= 200 gph
Rio 800= 211 gph

According to the cpr manufacturer they claim the rio 600 and 800 pump the same amount of air regardless of the amount of flow so decrease efficiency on the 800 and recommend the maxi-jet 1200 (I am guessing more air is pumped as well as water with the 1200).

I take it though from the response that the filter I have is a good skimmer, am I correct?

I couldnt' find anything though on copper leaching out with the rios. As far as I know all of the powerheads have a sealed unit with the impeller ineracting with a magnectic field so unless you are talking about wearing away of the plastic between the impeller and the housing there should be no copper leaking.

[Dozer]

Hey Thunder. If you're not running a sump, I think what you have there is about as good as any "hang on the back" types. I was running one of the older ones (not dual) on a 55 gallon tank and it worked. For me it was a pain to keep the preskimmer at the right level in the tank. It has to be a certain distance below the water level. If you're not running a sump with overflows, the water level changes constantly due to evaporation. Of course, if you are really consistent with your top off and keeping the water level constant in the tank, you will have pretty good results I think.

All that said, if you can run a sump there are some cheap in-sump type skimmers that you can get for that size tank that are a little easier to use I think. There are also other benefits to utilizing a sump (better yet a sump/refugium combo) but that's another conversation :D .

Oh yeah, one more thing. If you're using a bunch of live rock and maybe some live sand for biological filtration, I would remove the blue bio-bale stuff.

Oops, I lied, one more thing. There is a small wedge shaped sponge that comes with the unit. It is supposed to be placed into the return line going from the unit back into the tank and it's purpose is to limit any microbubbles from sneaking into the tank. This sponge- like any sponge- can easily get clogged up with gunk over time. Do you see where I'm going with this? If/when it does get clogged with gunk, the water can't get through the line back into the tank from the box efficiently. Thus water can "back up" into the overflow box and cause a flood. This is a major concern. There are 3 ways to correct this. 1) Constantly clean out that sponge! This is the best if you can guarantee you'll do it literally every week. 2) Remove the sponge. You run the risk of some microbubbles in your tank which really bothers some people, but you eliminate that flood risk. 3) If you have enough room behind your tank put together some sort of emergency flood spillover bucket/barrel that would catch this water in the case of an emergency. It doesn't have to be able to hold all 50 gallons of your tank, just has to hold enough in the case that it emptied down to the water level at the intake to the CPR skimmer box. If you've used it you'll know what I mean, but it's hard for me to explain it in writing. Please note, having the new dual system may eliminate a flood risk if there are two lines going back into the tank. I haven't seen that dual one, mine wasn't the dual, so I don't know if that's how it works. If there is still just one line going back in, though, then the flood risk is still there with that sponge.

[Thunderkat]

Thx Mike, yeah, it takes a bit of tweaking to get the level thing just right.

I only have one tiny piece of live rock but it was engulfed by cyanobacteria at one point and now green jelly like algae so I think any coraline algae is gone. I do know I need more live rock.

I do not have live sand nor do I ever intend on getting that. I had a pest problem in the past with it.

Mine does not have a sponge, the instructions kept talking about one but I never saw it. Mine came with a bubble trap tube.

I have had it over flow twice but thats because my tiger cowrie (fist sized) covered up the discharge. I turned the discharge to face the glass so it would not be able to cover it up but somehow it did it again (I know it was the snail because that area had been freshly cleaned by it).

Thats my only beef with the filter, any invertabrate that can cover the discharge will cause major problems.

I also don't have a sump because I have not found a website that describes how to do it. I imagine I can set up one tube from my tank to siphon water to the sump but then how will I get the return just exactly right. Too strong of a pump and the sump will run dry and burn up the pump and cause overflow. Not enough drainage from the pump and the sump will eventually fill up and cause overflow. Mabye I should just start a topic asking how this is done.

[AlexKilpatrick]

I also don't have a sump because I have not found a website that describes how to do it. I imagine I can set up one tube from my tank to siphon water to the sump but then how will I get the return just exactly right. Too strong of a pump and the sump will run dry and burn up the pump and cause overflow. Not enough drainage from the pump and the sump will eventually fill up and cause overflow. Mabye I should just start a topic asking how this is done.

I was really skeptical of this at first too. Are you an engineer? Most engineers are skeptical of things that seem too simple.

Short answer: It works. Trust us. It is pretty simple.

Long answer: The pump in the sump pumps water up into the tank. This wants to overflow the tank, but you have some sort of compartment that handles the water coming in and drains it back down to sump. Sometimes the tanks is drilled with a drain, but sometimes you have an overflow box that siphones the water out of the tank. Either way, the water coming in to the tank *has* to match the water draining down to the tank.

In terms of flow, you only have two things to worry about:

1) The sump pump is *too* powerful for the overlfow. If your overflow handles 200 GPH and your pump does 400, it won't be able to keep up. Then you really will overflow the tank.

2) You don't have enough water in the system. In this case, the sump will pump water up to the tank, but before it can drain back down, the sump pump will run dry. This is easily fixed by adding more water to the system.

Really, it takes almost no tweaking, contrary to what you might expect.

Now, one counter-intuitive thing is that as long as the pump is running, the water level in the tank will always stay constant. When you have evaporation, the level of water in the *sump* lowers.

The best thing for you is to just go to any fish store that has an independent tank set up (like AquaTek in Austin). You can see one in action, and it will all make sense.

[Thunderkat]

Heh, I was trying to overanalyze the situation but I am a firm believer in the KISS system of equipment (keep it simple stupid).

Yeah, thx for the info, I really do need a sump from what I have been reading here. I gotta get my hands on the stuff and that thin spaghetti macro algae I read about.