Cheato and Skimmers ? - Page 2

Salesbig · 11-05-2007, 01:14 PM

Ronen.. you also do a lot of water changes... maybe that makes a difference

Racing1 · 11-05-2007, 02:36 PM

I agree if you don't have an overflow it is probably not getting all the skum from the surface of the water...

fritz · 11-05-2007, 02:50 PM

I agree with the "not effective surface skimming". I know your tank has stuff to skim, if you blow the rocks plenty of stuff flies up but it can't make it to the overflow. You also didn't mention that by "cheato" you actually meant a one foot by two foot and 5 inch deep mat of cheato, which IMO definitely is competing with your skimmer.

OctaviousMonk · 11-05-2007, 03:31 PM

lol, Now that is just a silly amount of cheato. That really could make a dent in your skimate coillecting.

FutureInterest · 11-05-2007, 05:17 PM

I disagree...

Cheato doesn't actively compete with a skimmer. The skimmer removes only organics from the water column, so organic nitrates and phosphates are removed since they are hydrophillic. The inorganic nitrates and phosphates though are uneffected by skimming and this is what the cheato uses as building blocks. In essence the cheato exports what the skimmer missed... since the cheato can only use nitrates and phosphates that have decomposed from organics in the tank.

So if your skimmer isn't removing many of the organics, but your cheato is growing rapidly... then that means your organics are decomposing somewhere else in your tank into inorganic nitrates and phosphates. Since you've clearly used quality skimmers in the past, I have to assume that the skimmer just isn't receiving the organics to remove? Which might be a flow issue?