Quote:
Originally Posted by Atomikk
That is a fallacy. The actual movemement that is created by tiny bubbles around the area of the skimmer is far less than the entire footprint of your tank. If you look at the top of your tank, every micro-ripple is exchanging gases, CO2 for O2. Each of those ripples is supersaturated across the footprint of the top of your tank. This also includes your sump. BUT, the footprint of a skimmer, and its immediate surrounding area is vastly smaller than the rest of the tank.
Why don't you do an experiment with a heavily stocked tank. Take the skimmer offline, and keep the wavemaker in full blast mode. Then do the reverse.... I bet you that some of the corals could be affected by the latter method and not the former.
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The trouble with that statement though is that you are looking at the skimmer and sump drop foot prints as 1 dimensional when in fact the water in the skimmer or falling into the sump is surrounded by bubbles. I would be willing to bet that if someone much smarter then me figured the amount of "surface area" the water in the skimmer has we would all be floored.
As anecdotal evidence, I can point to the common practice of basement tank owners hooking their skimmer air intake up to a fresh air pipe and watching that fresh air alter the Ph of the tank. Also I would point to the method in Fresh water of CO2 injection via a bubbler again, changing the Ph through the gas exchange between the bubbles.
Not discounting the gas exchange that occurs on the surface of the water, I just don't see how that could be greater then what occurs in the skimmer.
FWIW, when my pumps go into night mode I keep the same patterns and just drop the flow by 20-25%
All IMHO