• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

No skimmer=More polyp extension??

9supratt4

9supratt4

The impeller for my skimmer pump finally went. So it's been a week today that I haven't had my skimmer on. When I looked into my tank last night, there was incredible polyp extension!! I have a piece of some kind of SPS that never had extensiom...in this new tank it started to have some, but last night the extension was incredible. But not just this piece...all my SPS and LPS had awesome extension!!

Is there a correlation here with the skimmer not running?? I can see the protein on top of the water in my sump...my DT has too much agitation so there is no film on that water.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Were your light on or off when you were looking in? Most (if not all) corals extend their polyps at night to feed (less predators). My chalice has like 4 inch sweeper tentacles that only come out at night.
 
9supratt4

9supratt4

mnat said:
Were your light on or off when you were looking in? Most (if not all) corals extend their polyps at night to feed (less predators). My chalice has like 4 inch sweeper tentacles that only come out at night.
Click to expand...

Lights were off...I always look in there at night. No matter when at night I look in there, there is not much extension....now without the skimmer it's just incredible extension.
 
qwik

qwik

I dont know if it can be because of the skimmer but I would keep an eye on water params without your skimmer running . It might be alright for a while but be careful nutrients are not building up on you .
 
9supratt4

9supratt4

qwik said:
I dont know if it can be because of the skimmer but I would keep an eye on water params without your skimmer running . It might be alright for a while but be careful nutrients are not building up on you .
Click to expand...

I'm definitely keeping an eye on everything!! The new impeller should be here in the morning, so I can get that back up and running soon.
 
whitebear1020

whitebear1020

I never could get my skimmer to work right. I only can get a quarter of a cup in two weeks. I changed skimmers, got coralife, the same story. It only starts to skim well when my BTA expels waste. The corals are doing well. Birdnests and montipora are growing ... go figure ???
 
MadReefer

MadReefer

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
I have seen that and was going to try it but one thing stopped me. If I remove all the socks, pads, etc. wouldn't all the dirt get trapped on screen? Then you wouldn't you be in the same position of not replacing/cleaning the that equipment? I could never find out how long it takes for the turf algae to mature.

I also have skimmer problems. Been through two and could never get them to skim properly. Which is why I was considering this approach.
 
D

Dave

MadReefer said:
I have seen that and was going to try it but one thing stopped me. If I remove all the socks, pads, etc. wouldn't all the dirt get trapped on screen? Then you wouldn't you be in the same position of not replacing/cleaning the that equipment? I could never find out how long it takes for the turf algae to mature.

I also have skimmer problems. Been through two and could never get them to skim properly. Which is why I was considering this approach.
Click to expand...

You harvest the algae off the screen once a week.

According to the thread it takes several months to produce the end product.

Here is a link that seems to contradict the assertion of the artice. It basically states you need to have seed turf algae.

http://www.athiel.com/lib5/turf.htm

There is a company that sells pre completed screens.  I believe it was at a reasonable cost as well.

Something to consider if you were going with this as an option.
 
MadReefer

MadReefer

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
Dave,
Thanks for the read. I didn't realize it was a certain type of algae. Most articles led to me believe it was a place to have algae grow instead of the DT. While the water passes through it would in a sense help clean it. Now I will have to give it more thought.

Mark
 
S

SWITCH420

I had mine going for 2-3 months now and have not had the skimmer on the whole time and i hate skimmers anyway never work right my screen has got all kinds of algae on it green red and my tanks are doing great so the post is worth a read its looong but very useful and a more "green" way of keeping tanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top