proteine skimmer
protein skimmer
It's hard to imagine a salt or brakkish water
aquarium without a skimmer. The next page will discuss
how they work and how to build them yourself.
how they work
If airbubbels come in contact with water organic
molecules stick together on the surface of the airbubble.
If these bubbles rise at the surface the form a
foam containing the organic molecules. This can easely
be seen on the colour of the foam: brown or yellow.
The longer the airbubbel stays in contact with the
water the more organic material will be collected.
The smaller the bubbels are , the longer it willtake to
rise to the surface. Also : a slow waterflow rate through
the skimmer gives a better cleaning result.
what will be removed?
- proteins will be almost completely removed. As proteines
contain nitrates and phosfate it will lower phosfate and
nitrate levels in youre aquarium.
- fat will be removed completely.
- small particles like plankton will be removed completely.
This is the also a disadvantage: the microworld of youre
aquarium will dissapear. Of course: this will also happen with
other ways of filtration. But there alternatives for
cleaning a saltwater aquarium without the use of forced
filtration. If you want to know more about this subject
take a look at: the ecological aquarium.
- dissolved nitates, ureum , ammonia and phosfate won't
be removed this way.
four different skimmers design's:
The simple one
This one can be made for almost no costs, and works
very efficient. It's good for not to large aquaria.
Like all skimmers you have to prevent fish and shrimp
to enter the skimmer. One of the big advantage of this
simpel design is the it is very easy to clean and can
work for long periods without problems. If you glue the
airstones on the bottle there will be a counterflow
in the middle of the bottle.
- Use a ceramic airstone, the wooden ones don't have
a long livespan.
- Use a really big airpump , the more bubbels the better.
- Use silicon aquarium glue.
- Afher some weeks the interior will be coated with a green slime layer
but that only needs to removed if the blocks the flow.
The countercurrent design
The countercurrent principe will only give just a
small improvement! Measurements compared with the simple
design shows that the improvement is hard to measure.
There are more components and so more tubes can be clogged.
And of course, you need an extra waterpump.
cycloon or turbo design or jet stream design
Water is mixed with air in a pump and ejected in
the reactorhouse. It looks really impressive, makes a
lot of noise and is exspensive. The big advantage is that
is has a greater waterflow than the airbubble, so its
good for large tanks. But using some more airbubble
skimmers will do this job too , are much cheaper and
have almost the same cleaning capacity. They need
less service.
Venturi skimmers
Air is blown through a small hole, producing a fine
mist of air bubbels. Noisy, costly and the small hole will
be clogged in the end.
Foam
A small story about foam:
The cleaningcapacity of a skimmer depends on the quality
of the foam. The more stiffer the foam , the better.
Foam gets better if there are more organic molecules
in the foam. So, after cleaning for some time, the amount
of dissolved organic molecules lowers and so the production
of foam: the cleaning stops. I you want to see it in a
graphic take a look at this one: This is the most important
reason that there is little improvement in cleaning
capacity if you increase the capacity of youre skimmer.
In other words: a cheap skimmer will do the same job,
with little noise.
improvements
1 The ozon gas breaks down organic materials and
improves the redoxpotential. It can be added to the air
that pumped in the skimmer. Ozon also destroys the glue
of youre skimmer if its not silicon-based glue.
2 The skimmer can be combined with a biological filter.
This can be done in several ways. the combination of air
bubbels and a biological filter improves both, the
airbubbel has a longer contact with the water and the
biological filter is better oxygenized.
3 The skimmer can be placed parallel within the
biological filter. If placed in this way the skimmer
is less effectiv and but easier in maintance.
4 In brakkish wateraquaria: Mysis produces an emulgator that
helps to produces more foam, so a better cleaning.
Krill does the same in saltwater.
Skimmer rules
- Avoid direct contact of crustacae (shrimps etc)
with air bubbels. The flow through the skimmer should
never exceed the volume of the aquarium/hour.
- if you place the skimmer before the mechanical
and biological filter it will remove a lot of particels as well.
The no-budget skimmer
The silicon-glue is the most exspensive part, but you
need a strong airpump as well, the bigger, the better.
A plastic Spa-bottle has exact the good seizes for
a protein skimmer.
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The 4 kinds of proteine-skimmers.
