Coral Prop Vid by Eric Borneman

djm

djm

Member
Originally Posted by ViPeR_930
many skimmers' cups have an outlet to automatically empty as it fills up.
That is a feature that I doubt I will ever be comfortable using. (Your points are valid as to how it is POSSIBLE and I appreciate them. I am still VERY curious about what Eric was feeding, even though I speculate he was refering to anything other than a show tank because of the risk.)
I hate hijacking a thread and it happens all the time on most message boards. Changing the subject in the middle of a thread has never been a problem anywhere else, but this MB seems to stay on topic in a thread and I won't break that trend. However, I would love to further discuss your quote that I highlighted at some point.
 
viper_930

viper_930

Active Member
Here's a pic of what I was refering to. As the skimmer cup fills up, the skimmate would just pour out into a larger cup or bucket.
 
fedukeford

fedukeford

Active Member
i think im doing something wrong, ive tried 2 times to load it and each time i do it gets up to 5+ hours to download so i just quit???????
 
fedukeford

fedukeford

Active Member
yupp, its working much better this time, im at 55% and ive got 20 min left :thinking: mabey i just did something wrong the last few times
 
djm

djm

Member
Originally Posted by ViPeR_930
Here's a pic of what I was refering to. As the skimmer cup fills up, the skimmate would just pour out into a larger cup or bucket.
I know what you meant, viper. My skimmer has the outlet on the bottom of the collection cup. I won't use it and it is why I mentioned that I would like to further discuss it. Since you brought it up, I will give my thoughts without feeling like I hijacked your thread.
First of all- my skimmer is external. It has only overflowed one time and that was when it was still new and I still wasn't familiar with its comfort level for water flow. Now that I have it dialed in, it hasn't overflowed. Even with the collection cup completely full for several days, most skimmers won't overflow. It's just a matter of physics. When the water flow is set correctly, there is not enough pressure available to force the water out of the top of the collection cup through the breather or the seal of the lid. The water simply stays inside the skimmer with no place to go. The downside is that skimmate is continuously being recycled back into the aquarium water. Not a good thing.
The problem I see with using the optional outlet is that there is no defense against an overflow at all if you aren't around to monitor it constantly. If you aren't around when something irritates your skimmer into overactivity, you will come home to a huge mess even if you do use a large container to catch the skimmate.
#1- If you don't use an automatic topoff system, water will continue pouring out of the skimmer until it no longer has a source to draw from. In my case, at least 20 gallons will be pumped out until my skimmer's pump is no longer in contact with water. My best case scenario is that I will burn up 4 powerheads, the pump to my skimmer, and, most costly, my main return pump from my sump. It wouldn't be a good day for me.
#2- If you do use an automatic topoff system, most likely it uses fresh water to just replace evaporation. If your skimmer went nuts one day, your pumps would be safely guarded from burning up, but the other results could be catastrophic. The way I see it, your skimmer would continue to spew all of the water it is being fed by the topoff water. It will continue to run until you get home to find a huge flood in your livingroom and find out that you are the proud owner of a new fresh water tank. Unfortunately, all of your sea creatures won't be around to welcome you home that day.
I will be the first to admit that I have absolutely NO idea how accurate those ideas are. Those are just what I speculate as being very real possibilities.
I'd appreciate any input on the topic.
 
viper_930

viper_930

Active Member
I see your point, but I don't think the skimmer would ever be pumping out so much water to cause problems before you get a chance to look at your tank. When wet skimming you get about 1-2 gallons or so of skimmate per day depending on the tank size, so the only way I see of the skimmer going into overdrive is if someone or something accidentally adjusts the output, thus raising the level of water in the skimmer. I've used the outlet feature on a skimmer and never had problems from it and still continue to use it without worry. Maybe Eric doesn't use big skimmers and micron bags to keep his tank clean after feeding, but I'm sure he has ways of doing it.
 
xdave

xdave

Active Member
You could use winrar and split it in half. Split into 157286400 bytes
If someone would host this long enough for me to download it, I could split the video itself and upload the parts. 310 MB may be a little big for some peoples connection anyway.
 
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