Surface skimmer

[instinctloh]

Hi,

im wondering is surface skimmer necessary and is the surface skimmer effective?

thks

[Urban Aquaria]

A surface skimmer is useful if you find that the water surface in your tank is often covered with a layer of oil film or if there is alot of floating waste/debris/leaves... the surface skimmer will draw in water from the surface, trap the oil and debris in its sponges and return clear water back into the aquarium. You'll just need to clean the surface skimmer sponges regularly to avoid it clogging up.

Note that small fishes and shrimps have a tendency to get drawn into surface skimmers, so you'll need to put a safety barrier or check the skimmer regularly to rescue any trapped fauna.

[bondwinner]

It's not typically considered as vital for a freshwater aquarium as it is for marine.
The purpose of the Surface Skimmer is to skim, or pull off, floating debris, scum and even dust from the surface of your aquarium

[instinctloh]

So is not so critical for fresh aquarium ? I'm thinking very hard how to let my skimmer work harder as mine is from the hob filter. Even tried to use it purely for surface by not attaching the lower part. Realised that is too noisy. So give up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Urban Aquaria]

Surface skimmer is mainly for tanks which tend to get an oily film at the water surface or lots of debris floating around... if the tank's water surface is usually already clear and no debris, then not much work for the surface skimmer to do, hence it considered an optional equipment.

The surface skimmer that you are using (which is connected to a hang-on back filter) probably makes noise because the its drawing in too much air compared to water, this is usually due to the flow being too strong or the skimmer head not floating properly on the water surface (especially if the water level drop lower than the skimmer head), you have to adjust the flow to get the right flow rate and adjust the skimmer head for the skimmer to work properly.

It can sometimes be tricky to get the ideal flow rate for certain surface skimmers to operate properly (depending on their design), so you'll just need to try and see.