Skimmer for freshwater indoor river?

1253 Views 7 Replies 7 Participants Last post by fishgeek88, Mar 7, 2017

Devon

Discussion Starter · Feb 11, 2017

This isn't saltwater related but thought I'd ask..
I just purchased a house that has a 16 ft x 2 ft wide indoor recirculating river that winds through the foyer. It had no filtration system in the past. I am designing a filter that drops under the floor into the crawl space with a homemade canister filter and a large UV sterilizer. I have a large bubble king skimmer I was going to put up for sale. Does anyone think a skimmer would be a good idea? I've never heard of a skimmer used for freshwater. I'm trying to make this as simple as possible as I have my tank takes up a lot of time already.

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mediumclay

· #2 · Feb 11, 2017

I've been told it won't work, the bubbles don't hold as long in fresh water so nothing gets transferred to the collection cup. I had asked around about a year ago for my discus tank and that's the response I got anyway, so I never attempted it.

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soverjas

· #3 · Feb 11, 2017

you can use a skimmer in a freshwater system. The reason most don't has a lot to do the specific gravity of fresh water. You wont get a very good foam so they will only tend to remove the largest partials of organics. A bag of Activated carbon would remove more organics then the skimmer in a fresh water system. Another reason they are not popular is we use protein skimmers in saltwater as a way to export those organics to essentially decrease the amount of water changes we need to do. In a fresh water system where you aren't throwing hundreds of dollars of salt a year at it just not as necessary.

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jay13

· #4 · Feb 12, 2017

Do yourself a favor. Take your skimmer and drop it into fresh water. Once you see it not working you can move on from this idea and build a better freshwater filter.

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peakessandbox

· #5 · Mar 6, 2017

What you need is to make a carbon reactor and sand filter. That would fulfill all your filtration needs. Do it on the cheap.

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reefermadd

· #6 · Mar 6, 2017

skim

a friend of mine moded a skimmer has been running on his fresh system for years. seen it working. only person i know of

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mediumclay

· #7 · Mar 7, 2017

reefermadd said:
a friend of mine moded a skimmer has been running on his fresh system for years. seen it working. only person i know of

No kidding.. Now I'm mad I didn't buy the cheap one I saw at a sale this weekend to experiment with!

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fishgeek88

· #8 · Mar 7, 2017

Koi people use them all the time. It really depends on the bio load. Normal application in freshwater they will not work.

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