Question about protein skimmers for the hydro guys

[ultrastealthgro]

I'm not a hydro grower yet but I'm thinking about making the switch from soil. My question for the hydro guys/girls here is has anyone incorperated a protein skimmer into their hydro setup yet? I've been in the saltwater fish/coral hobby for 10+ years now and I'm on my first MJ grow now and I've found a lot of the parts/equipment can be interchanged for growing coral and mj. I use protein skimmers in all my tanks to remove dirt or anything undesirable from the water in my system. Protein skimmers use very fine air bubbles mixed with the system water to remove a lot of junk from the system's water. They are however designed to function in saltwater but I know many people that use them in their freshwater systems as well. My thinking was it may be helpful in removing undesirable stuff from the resivour water in hydro systems as well, the stuff that causes roots to go bad and maybe prolong the period between water changes? Just a thought, let me know what you think?

 

[Bozo]

Depends on who you ask I do DTW and E+F in coco and I dont use airstones .Everytime I have used them they cause my reseviors to have floaters and makes my ph raise .
Also I just switched to House and garden nutrients and they say not to oxygenate the resevior.
There are types of hydro that require oxygenation .I dont wanna say dont use it ,just becarefull it may cause more trouble than it does good

 

[ultrastealthgro]

Thanks for the input Bozo. If you don't need oxygenated water I definitly wouldn't use one. It would, if used properly, kill any floaters you may have. Just thought I'd throw the idea out there and see what people think

 

[Bozo]

I worry the floaters are made up of stuff I would rather keep.
Not all nutrients cause this it happens worse when I add stuff like ANs Big Bud .I also noticed since I stopped using airstones my ph is much more stable over longer periods .

 

[mojogreenhand]

This would be a bad idea. I also keep a reef tank and for those we want crystal clear water. A protein skimmer will remove the organics and proteins necessary for the plant to thrive. Nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, copper and other good stuff for your plants could be removed to some extent by skimming.

 

[petemoss]

I used a protein skimmer in my Bio Buckets to provide aeration in the reservoir. That's how Hurtback, who was an aquarist, designed his original Bio system. When someone pointed out that the charcoal filter in the skimmer could remove nutrients, I stopped changing the filter and kept re-using the old one.

 

[ultrastealthgro]

Thats two very different opinions. I really have no idea what what effect it would have on mj grown in a hydro setup but I'm glad to hear different peoples point of view. I do have an old skimmer laying around and was thinking about working it into a future hydro setup. Thanks for the input!

 

[kaljukajakas]

Protein skimmers will remove proteins (or any large amphiphilic molecules) from the solution. Small highly polar species like inorganic nutrients will not be skimmed. Same thing for activated carbon. It will not remove inorganic nutrients.

So if you're a straight inorganic fertilizer user a protein skimmer would have no effect unless you had bad stuff growing in your reservoir, in which case it would be better to get rid of/prevent the problem and not just treat the symptoms with a skimmer. Skimming might have a negative impact on organic fertilizer based grows.

 

[clide]

i used to be into the aquaponics and id say definitely use it! there is so much floaty crap that comes out of fish its like gross! what i wouldnt use is a wet/dry filter, i dont think they have the bacteria capability that the freshwater ones have. what i prefer to use is something with a bio-wheel, now thats a penguin invention but there are other systems out there that use similar technologies. basically what you want is a moving self aerating bacteria colony type filter. this filter will usually cost a bit more than an average or cheaper "changeable filter" applications but the benefits outweigh the negatives. also thats not to say you cant connect it to the output of a protein skimmer or to also run changeable media filters, just dont expect them to work well for keeping a bacteria culture. the culture lives in the media/filter so throwing it away is counter productive, also it takes a long time to grow a really good well developed bacteria culture, doesnt happen over night. thats why i bottle my fish water for later use, you only need a half litre or so per culture because there are alot in there.

there is a bio wheel called heat which is ok, but then there are also square boxes that have two tubes coming out, im not too sure on how well those work as ive never used them before.

peace and love, hope this helped

 

[ultrastealthgro]

Lots of different opinions.