See I told you so!?!?!? Opinions needed.

[andrewsk]

I am going to go the other way and say that a sump would help you big time.

IMHO you do not want to break the water surface at all as that will just add annoying bubbles to the water.

First you should have a good strong powerhead close enough to the surface that you can see some serious turbulance in the water. (Not high enough to draw in air though)

Follow that up with an overflow that will pull all of the surface oil/scum into the sump where it is mixed and can be skimmed, etc.

If I had to guess why your skimmer is not working I would think that the input pump might be too far down from the surface to get the crud on top. It should only be an inch or so from the surface. (Just low enough to not draw in any air.

As far as a new tank goes, that is hard. If you can get an inexpensive overflow, then you might be ok. You can always add the Remora to the sump for now. The only problem is redundancy. a drilled tank will have more than one outlet incase one gets plugged.

Good luck and keep us posted!

[Samw]

True about the overflow sucking the scum away. I forgot that my system is set up reversed from the typical setup. My sump is overhead instead of below the tank. So my sump overflows into my main tank. Anyhow, here is the surface of my tank about 10 days after I removed the Aquaclear. Its yucky. But I've repaired the Aquaclear and put it back online tonight. it should clear up the scum in a few days.

[marie]

I have had sumpless tanks since 92 and just set up my first sump 4 mths ago. To get rid of surface scum you need lots of surface action, an aqua clear hang on filter works great and it can double as a fuge. I've never had a problem with bubbles in the water from too much surface agitation, it's always been the skimmer that put bubbles in the water

*Edit* if I didn't have my sump in the basement and had to put up with it under the stand, I wouldn't bother having one at all, it would be a bigger pain in the butt then its worth

[Chaloupa]

I've never had any bubble trouble when using a powerhead to agitate the surface water-we have a maxijet 1200 pointed at the surface right at the top of the tank...only microbubbles from water going through a sump with too few baffles...Samw UGH I'd be putting that AC back on your tank too..my surface scum is minimal~

[Buddyboy]

Well, i've tried using powerheads to break up the surface scum, but I find that all it does is push it to the sides. It's really frustrating! Does a CPR-style overflow box skim water from the surface, or just below the surface?

[reeferaddict]

Originally Posted by Buddyboy

Well, i've tried using powerheads to break up the surface scum, but I find that all it does is push it to the sides. It's really frustrating! Does a CPR-style overflow box skim water from the surface, or just below the surface?

CPR style overflows skim from the surface and will get rid of that... moreso than an AquaClear and certainly to a totally clean level with a couple of powerheads pointed towards the water surface... keeping your surface clear is of the utmost importance with regard to light filtering and gas exchange... Go with the sump... hide the heaters, skim and top off to the sump, and it adds more water volume...

SamW You have a gorgeous tank and I assume that your surface isn't always like that... I will ask what the difference is in DO between scummy and clean... notice any difference?

[Samw]

Originally Posted by reeferaddict

SamW You have a gorgeous tank and I assume that your surface isn't always like that... I will ask what the difference is in DO between scummy and clean... notice any difference?

Thanks. I don't aerate my tank through chopping up the surface of my reef tank. Therefore, the surface scum does not interfere significantly with the aeration in my system. In my system, the aeration is accomplished using an open loop protein skimmer (Currently AquaC Urchin). In the past, before I used this type of skimmer, I had to aerate with a venturi from the Millenium HOB filter. I just measured the DO level in my tank just now with one 150W MH Bulb on and it is 89%. This is the normal level in my tank w/ 1 bulb on at night (w/ no other ambient light). When both lights are on, the DO levels go to about 110%. Without any photosynthesis (lights off), the AquaC Urchin maintains a DO level of 85%. This is an improvement over the venturi which maintained a DO level of 55% with lights off and an improvement over my previous closed loop skimmer which could not maintain a DO level above 35% (probably closer to 20-25%. Didn't wait to find out. I had to turn the venturi back on to avoid killing stuff during this test).

[Dale]

Hi buddyboy,

One simple solution is to buy a surface skimmer made by aquaclear. It has some adaptors to fit various intake sizes and simply splits the intake draw from mid tank and surface. Here's a pic of one attached to an A.C. unit on my old 33G. It cost about $17.99


Of course, it doesn't take the place of drilling but it did effectively remove the surface layer of dissolved organic material.
________
Harley-Davidson XL883

[G1GY]

Do you feed lot's of fatty foods?

If you try to use a little bit more dry food like New Life Spectrum you may see this disappear.

Just a thought.