JamesC
Member
I seem to have had this surface scum for a little while now which I couldn't seem able to shift. I was also sure that it was also causing problems with low O2 levels in the tank due to little gaseous exchange at the water surface. Did a bit of hunting around and ended up buying a surface skimmer from http://www.aquaristikshop.com. I opted for the middle one called the Komfort as it has a removable adjusting bar. Arrived very quickly and well packaged.
Installing it into the tank was fairly straight forward but getting it to work properly was a nightmare. The clear plastic cage at the top is supposed to go up and down with the water level and is controlled by adjusting the amount of water entering through the bottom hole. No matter what I did, either no water went in the top or the whole basket got sucked down below the surface of the water. Maybe my Eheim 2028 filter is too powerful, I don't know but I gave up on it after a while as it was too unreliable to be used with my ever inquisitive shrimp that I didn't want to be sucked down into the filter.
As I always keep my tank topped up to the same level I decided to fix the automatic level controller so it couldn't go up and down. Put it back in the tank and had to adjust the amount of water entering the bottom inlet so a decent amount of water is pulled in from the top. About an hour later the water surface was crystal clear and has remained so for the past week. It is great having a clean water surface again. I've noticed that I've had to turn my CO2 up a bit to keep my drop checker at the same colour so I was obviously having poor gaseous exchange before. All in all a good product but had to bodge it to get it working. Be interested in hearing other peoples experiences with using surface skimmers.
Here's a photo of it in action. Bit sparse on plants at the moment as I had a chuck out and brought some new Limnophila Aromatica which seems to have become a tasty snack for someone. Wait till I catch him/her. Need to change the opaque tubing for some black stuff to make it blend in better.
James
Installing it into the tank was fairly straight forward but getting it to work properly was a nightmare. The clear plastic cage at the top is supposed to go up and down with the water level and is controlled by adjusting the amount of water entering through the bottom hole. No matter what I did, either no water went in the top or the whole basket got sucked down below the surface of the water. Maybe my Eheim 2028 filter is too powerful, I don't know but I gave up on it after a while as it was too unreliable to be used with my ever inquisitive shrimp that I didn't want to be sucked down into the filter.
As I always keep my tank topped up to the same level I decided to fix the automatic level controller so it couldn't go up and down. Put it back in the tank and had to adjust the amount of water entering the bottom inlet so a decent amount of water is pulled in from the top. About an hour later the water surface was crystal clear and has remained so for the past week. It is great having a clean water surface again. I've noticed that I've had to turn my CO2 up a bit to keep my drop checker at the same colour so I was obviously having poor gaseous exchange before. All in all a good product but had to bodge it to get it working. Be interested in hearing other peoples experiences with using surface skimmers.
Here's a photo of it in action. Bit sparse on plants at the moment as I had a chuck out and brought some new Limnophila Aromatica which seems to have become a tasty snack for someone. Wait till I catch him/her. Need to change the opaque tubing for some black stuff to make it blend in better.
James