Can a skimmer be too powerful, or too big?

[Jackson919]

I am currently in the process of building my new skimmer. I built my last one and it worked like a champ but I used the specs from the plans on a DIY site.

I have a 55 gallon tank, with about 16 gallons in the sump. Can the skimmer I build be too big, skimming too much water? Or when the skimmers advertise a certain gallon size tank that is the max it can handle and can be used for any size tank under that? I would like to build a large skimmer with more powerful pumps to skim more water with a higher water column but I'm not sure if this will upset the balance of the tank.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Len]

I've never had an issue with a skimmer being too powerful. What happens when I use oversized skimmers is that it is more often "idle" .... that is, doesn't produce skimmate as regularly.

 

[Anonymous]

What Len said, plus if you are feeding some sort of phytoplankton or other coral foods you should turn your skimmer off anyways, so no worries about pulling that expensive food right out of the water. That being said there are some corals (soft ones, xenia, etc) that can eat disolved organics in the water column so with that regard if you don't do any supplimental feedings they might not grow as fast... but then again I think really clean water is much more desirable than certain softies growing out of control

 

[wyw]

To me it seems theoretically it could be possible to have too large of a skimmer. If the skimmer did not have enough to pull out in order to break it in then it wouldn't be able to properly skim? In reality I don't think it happens very often but if you were to put a skimmer made for a 200G tank on a 10G tank could it do the job?

I'd love to hear you tech types tackle this.

 

[Anonymous]

It is like driving a SUV to buy some movie tickets.... wait, a lot of people do that...

 

[Anonymous]

IMO there is a point when the additional power added does is not justified by the additional waist removed. Where that point is I have no idea.

 

[shred5]

I think you can.. Bigger the better .. But there is a point were you will not get the foam to raise up the collection cup and it will never produce skimate it will just collect a little in the neck or nothing at all...

Dave