Protein Skimmer Recycling

[JCheung]

Hey just wondering if there are any companies out there that are focusing on breaking down the scum that protein skimmers take out to be recycled for nutrients for other organisms.

[JayM]

no. it's basically considered to be effluent.

[Jim Tansey]

Makes a great Margarita mix.

[JayM]

it would probably be pretty good fertilizer if you could get past the smell....

[Jim Tansey]

Salt will kill the plants, better to use in your Margaritas.

Jim

[JCheung]

But doesn't this occur in nature? I would assume it sits on the beach until it rains and in that case just gets washed back into the water. So i am assuming there would be some way to recycle it. Could you give it to mangroves or something? some sort of plant that grows in saltwater?

[Jim Tansey]

The discussion is getting a little too advanced for me....I'm out.

Jim

[JCheung]

Yes i was thinking that, at least in my mind, that most pet keeping hobby's try to move their pets to living in as close as possible natural state of habitation.
Like with dogs, people are trying to move them to natural diets and making the dogs live with the pack mentality, and for owners to be pack leaders.

[Greg Hiller]

>But doesn't this occur in nature? I would assume it sits on the beach until it rains and in that case just gets washed back into the water.<

Despite what Sprung and Delbeek used to write, I don't think that any real 'protein skimming' occurs in the natural ocean. I cannot think of any significant benefit to recycling what comes out of a protein skimmer. The substances are quite broken down at this point, useful for bacterial, cyanobacteria, etc., but much less so for most corals (maybe non-photosynthetics would benefit?). It's much easier to add high quality food again to the system for the fish.

[JCheung]

I think the benefit would be a lessening of ongoing costs with keeping the tank going after setting it up. And a more natural approach to aquarium habitats. Mind you this is all theory, i would rather just toss out the Cr*p at the end of the day and just get new stuff.

[smcnally]

I think the benefit would be a lessening of ongoing costs with keeping the tank going after setting it up. And a more natural approach to aquarium habitats. Mind you this is all theory, i would rather just toss out the Cr*p at the end of the day and just get new stuff.

How would it lessen the cost when you add a treatment to convert it to something useful? It doesn't cost me anything to dump it out in the yard ;)

[JCheung]

No i meant to convert it naturally, and then all the nutrients would stay within the system. Meaning no more adding trace elements and other suppliments.

[smcnally]

The skimmer isn't the primary cause of trace element export. Nutrient export, yes...but not trace elements. The trace elements are going into your corals, fish, clams, etc. They don't come back out...The only way you would get any trace elements back out of your corals would be to break the skeletons up once dead and run low pH sea water around them (in a calcium reactor) and you would get the calcium back. There really is no way to keep trace elements in the system once they are consumed. It would almost be like saying you wanted to eat a hamburger and then live the rest of your life off of eating your own poop each time it came out. Each time, there would be less and less nutrients in the "poop" because it is going into your growth.

[naturebatslast]

It would almost be like saying you wanted to eat a hamburger and then live the rest of your life off of eating your own poop each time it came out.

I saw that on South Park, great episode:D

[JCheung]

Well fine lessen the costs, i guess you would have to add some back in or start off with a high enough concentration.
And that sort of happens right now, it kind of goes into my self sustaining tank idea. The "poop" gets eaten by organisms, which get eaten by other organisms and then eventually reaching back to the original fish.

[naturebatslast]

On a small system with little to no bioload, maybe it could work, similiar to the brine shrimp in a bubble thing. But if you planned on keeping fish or corals ,hard or soft, I doubt it would work. With a closed system, for animals to thrive and grow you need nutrient import and export, without it, IMO, I can almost smell the stink of a crashed system.

[chew*]

Well fine lessen the costs, i guess you would have to add some back in or start off with a high enough concentration.
And that sort of happens right now, it kind of goes into my self sustaining tank idea. The "poop" gets eaten by organisms, which get eaten by other organisms and then eventually reaching back to the original fish.

There are to many loops missing out of the food chain In our tanks which is more of a controlled environment. Some of the "pests" that we try to get rid of or are successful in getting rid of are all part of the chain. In order to have a complete chain you would have to live with the fact that your corals would get eaten and you would have to use a very very large tank just to house a 100% food chain loop which aside from living on the ocean and pumping fresh saltwater in/out I find near impossible to duplicate.

[JCheung]

Yeah this is why its a crazy question, could you do it if you had near infinite funds. Or is it possible on a slightly smaller scale.
Oh wait this is the wrong thread of the crazy question.
But umm yeah! This kind of relates to my crazy question dream on the basic reef forum.
Because i was thinking in nature this "poop" would be reprocessed and eventually find its way back into the system.
Which would go a long way in having a self sustaining system.

[jbundas]

The easiest way to "recycle" your skimmate is to turn your skimmer off so you don't pull the nutrients out in the first place. People run skimmerless systems with success, but generally not the relatively high bio load systems that most people have. Fish and corals, generally kept in abundance, need relatively complex foods. The organisms that like their byproducts (bacteria, cyano, algae, etc.) aren't nearly a populous in a reef tank (at least not intentionally or preferably) as they need to be to consume the leftovers like they do in the wild. So ultimately, you either get a cup of otherwise worthless slime to pour down the drain or a tank fully of unsightly algae.

I think the trick to doing a skimmerless system is to have a lot of refugium/algae growing space, most likely larger than your actual main display. Ideally, you'd want to have large section of your system dedicated to biological recycling where algae can consume the otherwised skimmed nutrients then pods and shrimp and such can feed from the algae. Those "food sized" organisms ultimately get blown back to the main display where they feed fish and corals. The theory is great, the prospect of having a 400 gallon fuge to support a 100 gallon display isn't so great.

[chew*]

Actually I have seen it in action at CIMI valley institute. I think i was 16-17 years old. Was a school trip to Catalina Island Marine Institute. We had a dive for about an hour which got me interested in reefs in the first place. They had a small building with shallow, lit tanks, Full of corals and other stuff. They had a very large pump system that drew Fresh seawater in and gravity took it back out. SO basically no filters, no chemicals, No feeding, Just artificial light was used when it was cloudy or raining as they had a large sunroof. It was about as natural as it gets. No clue if they still have that setup, It may have expanded by now.

[Aquaman_68]

>But doesn't this occur in nature? I would assume it sits on the beach until it rains and in that case just gets washed back into the water.<

Despite what Sprung and Delbeek used to write, I don't think that any real 'protein skimming' occurs in the natural ocean. I cannot think of any significant benefit to recycling what comes out of a protein skimmer. The substances are quite broken down at this point, useful for bacterial, cyanobacteria, etc., but much less so for most corals (maybe non-photosynthetics would benefit?). It's much easier to add high quality food again to the system for the fish.
Hey Greg, You ever walk along a beach after Riptides or serious undertows or even hurricane storm swells created from a hurricane churning 500 miles away from the shore? I've spent alot of time on the beach in these conditions. (Best time to surf on the north east coast) When waves crash on the shore...The foam created from the crashing of the waves looks the same color & consistency as foam produced by our protien skimmers..Might not do all that much in the wild since tides will rise & bring it back out from the shore. Although..... I would have to speculate that a portion of the waste would leach into the sandbed @ the shore or even be extracted by the seaweed that is deposited high up the shore. (with the higher than normal tides due to these conditions & for that matter...Moon tides produce higher than normal tides as well)
JMTC...;)

[naturebatslast]

They had a very large pump system that drew Fresh seawater in and gravity took it back out.
Sounds like a nice setup, but not really a closed system using fresh NSW.

[smithcreek]

Hey just wondering if there are any companies out there that are focusing on breaking down the scum that protein skimmers take out to be recycled for nutrients for other organisms.

Cobra1858 here on the forum is working on a system for doing exactly that sort of thing. Problem is he needs more skimmate to conduct his studies. So please save up your skimmate in 1 gallon jugs, preferably left outside in the sun for at least 2 weeks, then ship it to him. PM me for his address.:rolleyes:

[jbundas]

Daily 100% NSW water changes is certainly another way of not having to throw out skimmer slime. Effectively, the ocean is doing your filtration....as well as supplying fresh food.

To save on shipping, send your skimmate to Cobra1858 in cheap sandwich bags held closed with a twisty tie or a piece of scotch tape - no overnight, slow boat all the way.

[JCheung]

what does nsw stand for and ewww i would really hate to be the ups guy that has to handle that if it pops.

[jbundas]

NSW = natural sea water

[JCheung]

yeah natural sea water changes would be cheating.

[chew*]

Mind you they were using NSW from an established reef at CIMI , I would muster a guess to say that this would not work if you just pulled NSW from just anywhere, Being that they were pulling water right next to the reef and being that all the corals and life being kept came from the same reef I'm sure has played a large part in it's sucess.

Also I probably don't need to say it but they had no skimmer to my knowledge, however when i was 16-17 The only skimmer i had ever seen or used was in my backyard and we used it to skim the crud off the top of our water(leaves,grass,pine needles) which would be termed better as a net.

[Greg Hiller]

Brian, sure foam is created on the shore under some conditions, but do you really think that it is a significant export of nutrients from a coral reef?

[chew*]

Technically anytime the water is choppy foam is created, however think about all the other living organisms that aren't apart of our tanks makeup that probably could and would break this down.

When at CIMI we took a sample of water as part of the program and then when back to the lab we all looked at the bio diversity under a scope. I can say honestly there were 100's of visible life forms to the naked eye in a pickle jar sized jar that we took the sample with, Once under the scope there were thousands. I highly doubt we would find this much diversity in our tanks. The fact that most of our tanks are crystal clear clean should be the first sign.

[Aquaman_68]

Brian, sure foam is created on the shore under some conditions, but do you really think that it is a significant export of nutrients from a coral reef?
I don't know about significant...but it does remove some organics. You have to keep something in mind here...The ocean is a vast sump not like we have in our closed systems. So it would be much easier to go skimmerless!! But I still think waves crashing on the shore & the foam it makes does remove some organics....to what degree......I would say probably pretty small.