A word to the wise - additives requiring a skimmer

[christyf5]

If you're using Foz Down, or for that matter, any additive that requires skimming to remove after its done its deal, be sure that your skimmer is actually, physically skimming. Just returned home after 5 days away to find all of my pociliporas (including my prized 12+ year old colony) have bit the dust and a few non-pociliporas have started as well and everything has browned out. They were looking kind of sketchy before I left but I had no idea they'd be this angry over whatever is in the water.

I'm not saying the product is bad, just that if you have an additive that really relies on a skimmer, make sure its working. It would seem my skimmer is "working" but not really doing much skimming (or something, I haven't looked at it yet. Euro-Reef is not my friend right now ).

Off to do multiple waterchanges and look at skimmers online (and only dream of actually buying one).

[MarkoD]

I never had success skimming out fozdown. I always used a 1 micro sock to remove it

[toytech]

It could have been the sudden drop in phosphate that knocked the corals out , ive been using fozdown too in my frag tank (without a skimmer) and i used too much and paid the price . My few sps frags bleached or rtn`ed all together overnight .When i use a small amount at a time though all my corals are fine.

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by toytech

It could have been the sudden drop in phosphate that knocked the corals out , ive been using fozdown too in my frag tank (without a skimmer) and i used too much and paid the price . My few sps frags bleached or rtn`ed all together overnight .When i use a small amount at a time though all my corals are fine.

Hmm, never thought about that, however I was monitoring it via a Deltec kit and thought I was doing a pretty good job of bringing it down slowly (although those last couple days I thought I had it in hand enough to deal with it without the test kit, guess I was wrong).

[michika]

Bummer on so many levels. Good advice though!