- Today on "BRStv Investigates," we've conducted a series
of skimmer tests in an artificial environment,
but this time, we're experimenting on our very own 750XXL
to find out if more air creates a wetter skim.
And then in our next experiment, we finally attempt
to answer which air draw setting will pull out
more organics, wetter or dryer skimmate?
All that's coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hi, I'm Randy with this Friday's "BRStv Investigates"
where we put popular reefing gear, theories,
and methods to the test by experimenting
on our own tanks so you don't have to experiment on yours.
And in today's experiment, we determine if
the protein skimmer air draw performance results we've
been testing in the BRS lab tanks will produce similar
results on our very own reef tank, the BRS 750XXL.
So to get right to it, over the last handful
of protein skimmer testing experiments,
we've developed a pretty good picture
into how air draw cannot only vary from skimmer pump
to skimmer pump, or how air draw changes
with different skimmer design types, but we've also learned
that we can use air draw to change the type of skimmate foam
that we can achieve with our skimmers.
If you're like many other reefers, including myself,
until now, we really haven't given air draw rates
much of a second thought, yet where we weren't using
air draw adjustments before to help dial in
our skimmer's performance, now that we are more informed
on what changing the air flow inside the skimmer
is capable of achieving, we can use that information
to optimize our skimmer performance.
With that in mind, there's really only two questions left
hanging out there that we need to answer, which are:
Does more air equal a wetter skim on a real-world reef tank
like the 750XXL, and is more air flow
and higher air velocity better
at removing organics from our tanks?
Today, we answer that first question using
our Regal 200EXT recirculating skimmer
that's already on our BRS 750XXL.
And then, in the next experiment, we're going to see
just how much organics are removed by using
a dry, wet, or in-between air flow setting
to answer that second question.
So let's get started with today's results.
Today's experiment will be a pretty quick visual comparison
where we put our 200EXT skimmer on this tank
to the test by monitoring the type of skimmate produced
when we set the recirculating VarioS-4 skimmer air pump
to the lowest, middle, and highest settings
of one, three, and five speeds.
Just a reminder, these settings should be around
440, 810 and 1080 liters per hour air draw, respectively.
In order to do that we set the pump speed,
then adjusted the water height level inside
the skimmer and monitored its performance for 24 hours,
where we took a snapshot of the skimmer's skimmate
production after the first hour at those air draw speeds,
and then a second snapshot after 24 hours
to see what type of skimmate each setting was
able to achieve, and here's what we found out.
In the first hour of our recirculating skimmer
set to the lowest air draw speed setting of one,
we see the low velocity of the air flow
creates more time for the foam head to develop,
and as such, there's a pretty thick and dry skimmate.
After about 24 hours there's still a dry foam
in the neck with the organics that have collected
along the neck walls, and some of it did push up
and spill over into the collection cup.
The waste collected in the cup looks to be
very dark and organically rich, and if we were
actively adjusting the water height in the
skimmer body, we probably would have seen
even more of that dark, thick skimmate in the cup,
and less within the skimmer neck.
Looking at the first hour of the skimmer set
to a speed setting of three, we can already see
that there's an increased velocity in the air
pushing up into the neck and out of the skimmer top.
Bubbles at the top surface of the skimmate foam
are popping more rapidly than the first air flow
setting one, and the entire foam head is
almost cresting the skimmer neck and into
the collection cup.
At the end of the test, near the 24 hour mark,
we can see that there is definitely more organics
that made it into the cup, which looks to be
very dark and still collecting when the test ended.
For the next test we set the recirculating air pump
speed to the max setting of five and within
that first hour of skimming the amount of air
leaving the skimmer is so fast that already
there's wet skimmate spilling over into
the collection cup, where by the end of the first hour
there's already some water skim developing.
Looking at this setting 24 hours later
nearly half of the collection cup is full
and the consistency looks like a dark tea color
that you can see through into the skimmer neck.
So what we're seeing here is directly in line
with what we saw in the BRS lab skimmer testing
experiments, where there are clear lines
between the dry and wet skimmate that we're
capable of achieving by simply changing
the air draw speed of the pump.
But we're not done yet.
Much like you, we wanna know which one,
dryer or wetter skim, will perform the best
at removing not just water, but at removing
the most organics.
Okay, so rating today's question, does more air
equal wetter skim on a real-world reef tank
like the 750XXL?
I think anyone looking at the results we saw today
would overwhelmingly vote for a 10 out of 10
on the reef certainty scale, that yes,
more air and higher air velocity being
injected into the skimmer will absolutely
produce a much wetter skimmate, but does that mean
it's better than a dryer skimmate?
We're learning how to utilize the available tools,
where now, we're able to make smarter, more informed
decisions on how to adjust our skimmers
for a dry or wet skim, but what's not been answered
is whether one is better than the other.
In our next experiment we set out to test
that very question by gathering skimmate
that each of these three air draw settings
collect in a 24 hour period, and then compare them
against each other as to which one is able
to remove the most organic content for our
750XXL tank's specific bio load and feeding habits,
whereby the end of that test you should be able
to use these tools and discussion to choose
and tune your skimmer to an option that best suits
your very own tank.
Although we're learning even more about skimmers
than before, they're certainly not the only way
to remove organics from your tank.
So after you get your skimmer tuning right, what's next?
Actually, filter socks are definitely a viable option
that we tested in this video and I can guarantee you
most are using them wrong, but find out for yourself.