I've read about protein skimmers and I was wondering if a skimmer wound do anything in a 30 gallon freshwater tank or are the skimmers just for saltwater? I also had another question. I just bought the emperor 400 for the 30 gallon and was wondering if this would work. I've never used carbon in my filters because I've never felt the need to. My tanks have always been extremely clean. I've used the Aquaclear filters on my tanks before and instead of the carbon I would just double up on the sponge. What I did with the Emperor is I cut up an Aquaclear 500 sponge and put it in the media basket that you can fill with anything. I did it for both baskets. Willl this filter my tank is what I want to know?Thanks for any advice.
Just need some info
- Thread starter sezaro21
- Start date
Bingo on the EmP that's what a lot of us do. Protein skimmers are not effective in FW like they are in Salt water.
dave
dave
Any advice woukd be greatly appreciated
I wanted peoples opinion about a protein skimmer fer freshwater tanks. YES or NO and why please?
I wanted peoples opinion about a protein skimmer fer freshwater tanks. YES or NO and why please?
No--the surface tension of FW is such that a standard venturi fitting will not create the fine sized bubbles needed to be effective. The concept is valid, but fails in application. Professional bubbler fittings, costing several thousand dollars, would work, but the effect does not justify the cost.
Freswhwater is not thick enough for a protein skimmer to work properly as designed. It requires salt water to creat bubbles small enough for it to be effective. so essentially you can put one on your freshwater tank but it won't do anything really. There are surface skimmer for freshwater that operate by slowly pulling surface scum into a filter more or less, but there is very little use for them as a whole.
Dave
Dave
Protein "skimmers" generally are mis-named. Most in the hobby are foam fractionators. They use and take advantage of the tendency of polar molecules (that is molecules with uneven charges on their surface, including proteins) to associate with air/water interfaces - such as the top surface of the water against the air, or the surfaces of bubbles. Bubble size is controlled in part by the surface tension of the particular liquid. Fresh water cannot form bubbles as small as can marine water due to the surface tension differences. Therefore, effective foaming is practical in SW, not in FW. As OG pointed out, it is possible in both situations, but at the hobby level not practical in FW. So to answer your repeated question, whether you make the effort to understand it or not, no - protein skimming is not useful in the hobby in FW. But understanding is far better than accepting statements as carved in stone., as it is not in reality carved in stone.
Since salt is the saving grace of fractionators, could one be used in a brackish tank? There's a *little* salt in there, not as much as a true SW tank, but would it be enough to foam correctly?
That's a great question because my tank is actually Brackish water. Wound a protein skimmer do me any good. Sorry that I forgat to mention that from the start. I guess that was impotant info. By the way I just regestered with this site but have learnrd a lot from here for the past year. Just wanted to say that this site is INCEDIABLE and say thank you for everyones input on behalf of myself and everyone else :bowing:
That will depend on the specific gravity, and the protein load in the water, plus the efficiency of the particular skimmer. Generally thay are not very effective below mid-level BW for me (1.008-1.012+)