wet or dry skimming on my C-130

Orlando-Jeff

Active Member
I've actually got my stock skimmer on my C-130 running pretty good after a year of playing around with it. I do notice though that with the water level door all the way closed I don't get much skim mate out of it. Tonight I raised the door about half way open. I'm assuming that would be more of a wet skim. Nothing so far but I guess I will give it a day or two to see if it makes a difference. Any one out there still using the stock skimmer and if so, am I correct assuming with the door open more, I would be getting a wet skim?
 

Rini

Well-Known Member
Hi

Basically in the same boat except i have the C-250. Exact the same as you describe.
I'm using the door halfway open to get something in the cup. When I close the door the skim mate is much darker but it takes a few days to get something in the cup.
I did some research on the internet and learned that wet skimming is I want to do.


Wet skimmate: is the thin light green tea-colored solution collected when lots of air and a relatively high water column height is adjusted for in skimmers that are adjustable (MR-2 type skimmers). This removes a lot of seawater and requires that any auto-top-off devices be turned off during such operations. Failure to do so may result in dilution of salinity. As an alternative (especially in sumpless systems), the system may be overfilled with seawater and skimmed down to normal levels.
Wet skimmate allows for better rapid collection of particulates and some organics, but at the cost of collecting extra water (around 2 to 3 gallons every 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the adjustment settings.) This extra water collected can be added to the total for discard from water changes, and acts to clear the water column of suspended detritus. This is especially helpful while performing detritus siphoning/uspension and algal scraping of the glass and when blowing the rock with current to remove detritus. You'll need to keep track of the total amount of seawater removed from the system, and replace that amount with fresh seawater to maintain salinity parameters. If you use auto-top off, make sure to adjust the height of the water in the sump before restarting the auto-top-off to prevent changes in your system's salinity



Dry skimmate: is the thick, concentrated skimmate collected when water column height is adjusted to about 3 or 5 cm below the collection neck (may be more or less depending on pump, skimmer brand, and venturi/air injection device) and the air injection is reduced to prevent excessive foam formation. This allows the skimmate to concentrate in the foam formed within the collection riser so that the skimmate collected in the cup is quite concentrated, relatively "drier" than the thin wet skimmate collected with less restrictive adjustments. This is usually the optimum setting for skimmers, as it does not remove large volumes of water while the system is unattended, yet effectively removes large amounts of DOC and particulates from the water column. This conservation of seawater helps to prevent fluctuations in salinity, especially in systems with automatic top off devices in operation.


Wet skimming for me :)
 

RedSeaKev

RS Sponsor
I've actually got my stock skimmer on my C-130 running pretty good after a year of playing around with it. I do notice though that with the water level door all the way closed I don't get much skim mate out of it. Tonight I raised the door about half way open. I'm assuming that would be more of a wet skim. Nothing so far but I guess I will give it a day or two to see if it makes a difference. Any one out there still using the stock skimmer and if so, am I correct assuming with the door open more, I would be getting a wet skim?

Hi Jeff, your thinking is correct, the higher the skim adjuster the wetter the skimate, we recommend a wet skimate, it is however important to keep a close watch on salinity, wet skimming is certainly worth the effort.
 
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