Would one of these:

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=HG11006

on my AC 500 give me a decent amount of skimming for a 10g Nano?

--Dan

I have tried one in the past and I am just not too impressed with it. Maybe it was 2% smarter than me, I dont know...

If you get one and can get it to work out good for you please let me know what the secret is and maybe I will try one again.

No that is designed to pull out surface fil on a freshwater tank you actually need to pull out dissolved organic matter through foam fractionating. They make them like a prizm my personal favorite, then they make air driven. most designsare either venturi, air driven via limewood air stone or a combination of both.

Ah I see! Merci!

--Dan

Yeah when I fist read the tittle I was thinking skimmer as in Protien Skimmer. After reading the post I was able to asertain the item he was talking about and its operation as I have tried one in the past with so-so results.

Most Nano-Reefs (nano being under 25 gallons to my way of thinking and this is a subjective opinion...) dont use a Protien Skimmer but rely on small frequent water changes to keep water parameters in check instead! Many who use a skimmer on tanks this small will sue a small 5 gallon sump or some other type of arrangement.

The surface skimmering device you have pictured will remove the film/slick that often forms on a tanks surface and it will allow for better oxygen exchange and allow more of your light to penetrate the tanks water. I just havent had as good a luck with that item as I would have liked or was lead to believe by the manufacture in regards to preforming as advertised.

I personall don't like skimming on small tanks but one of my corals wouldn't open unless i had the skimmer on there and i do prefer to do the small freguent water changes.

Here is an example of what a Protien Skimmer looks like (the tall tube thing in the center compartment). This one is a Red Sea Berlin XL thats hooked up to a mag Drive 5. This particular one is sitting in a sump for illustration purposes only.

This is a pretty important and highly recommend piece of equipment for most saltwater tanks. In principal they remove an increadible amount of crude from your water buy producing a huge amount of very fine bubbles. These bubbles in the reaction chamber will rise to the top causing DOC's to seperate from the water and then they overflow into a collection cup at the top. Generally the taller they are the more dewell time the bubbles have to make this happen, and generally the more efficient they are, but this is not always the case as some designs are better than others.

As stated earlier they are generally not used on Nano-Reefs. This is due to their bulky size and on Nano-Reefs, space is usually at a premium. Most Nano-Reefer's skirt this by doing frequent small water changes in order to keep the water quality at acceptable levels and to prevent sudden drastic changes in water conditions.

Hope this helps clear things up a bit...

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I have a prizm love it very much. the mag drive pumps or they any good are they quite. low noise, stuff like that. And do they produce low heat.

I've decided not to go with a skimmer on my nano. My 100g will be different tho B)

--Dan

The Mag Drive series pump are built like a brick house! I have been using them for about 3 years now and cant find a fault in one of them. The do give off a bit of heat though I have noticed, but not excessively though. They are pretty quiet as long as they arent touching the glass the heater or rocks that are touching glass at which point they can be quiet irritating, but I supose that would be true of any pump. Mine are in the sumps and padded buy a pretty course sell sponge isolating them form hard objects. I have the 3, 5 & 7's with about 6 pumps total in my inventory of tanks. Not one has failed and some have been used pretty hard. Prehaps not the best pump on the market but I would put thier reliability up against any other brand without reservation. I use them for return pumps and for skimmer pumps and they are excellent for this purpose I think. I like the Pond models that sold for Koi Ponds as the cords on them are pretty long and allow me to run cords without creating a birds nest of wiring and plug ins. All have very heavy duty wiring for the plugs and are heavily insulated.

If you run across something better by all means let me know!