Thoughts on over skimming

[Canadian]

Originally Posted by untamed

Sorry to hear that...that's awful.

Just a theory...

Shutting the skimmer off at night allowed the oxygen level in the tank to drop to deadly-low. Fish died....then the skimmer came back on to find a extra jolt of death in the water and foamed over.

Skimmers supply O2 to the water as well as remove nastiness. This is critically important at night when no photosynthesis is occuring. (unless you have an opposite-light-cycle refugium...which can help)

Once you are up to it, read this...

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-08/eb/index.php

I've read numerous references that O2 is not strongly affected by protein skimming.

From the article you've referenced above:

Airstones and skimmers appear to be a very effective means of oxygenating small water volumes. Their effect on larger water volumes appears to be less. While the effect may be relative, the larger tanks and systems described here utilized powerful skimming or air pumps, and to gain an equivalent amount of oxygen as occurs in small water volumes would likely require air pumps or skimmers far larger than those commonly employed by aquarists. This includes data from a coral farm where very large commercial sized skimmers and high surface area/volume ratios failed to produce water even nearly saturated with oxygen at night with a heavy coral population.