Due to the age of this thread, I am assuming the issue was resolved. Just for posterity, it is important that it be said that the real problem was in the water chemistry. Different protiens and organics act as positive, neutral, and negative surfactants.
An inefficiently designed skimmer will not be able to effectively remove organics that act as neutral and negative surfactants, and its skimmate tends to regularly be on the dry side. Dry skimate does not mean clean water.
Switching to an efficient skimmer on a system with accumulated neutral and negative surfactants will produce wet skimmate because the bubble perimeters are saturated with the positive surfactants faster. Only then can the bubbles begin to absorb the neutral and negative surfactants. At this point, the bubbles become very hydrophillic which is why the skimmate becomes very wet.
Wet skimmate is not a bad thing. It is much better to replace water due to wet skimmate than to replace water from an unnecessary water change due to high nitrates casue by the neutral and negative surfactants.
Contributors to wet skimmate are:
Meds that cause fish to produce excess slime.
Water conditions that stress the fish (pH, organic nitrogen products including nitrate poisoning, a large variance from seawater's natural ionic balance, salinity, etc.)
Stimulation of scaless fish.
Foods such as shrimp and whole cut fish (with guts).
An inefficiently designed skimmer will not be able to effectively remove organics that act as neutral and negative surfactants, and its skimmate tends to regularly be on the dry side. Dry skimate does not mean clean water.
Switching to an efficient skimmer on a system with accumulated neutral and negative surfactants will produce wet skimmate because the bubble perimeters are saturated with the positive surfactants faster. Only then can the bubbles begin to absorb the neutral and negative surfactants. At this point, the bubbles become very hydrophillic which is why the skimmate becomes very wet.
Wet skimmate is not a bad thing. It is much better to replace water due to wet skimmate than to replace water from an unnecessary water change due to high nitrates casue by the neutral and negative surfactants.
Contributors to wet skimmate are:
Meds that cause fish to produce excess slime.
Water conditions that stress the fish (pH, organic nitrogen products including nitrate poisoning, a large variance from seawater's natural ionic balance, salinity, etc.)
Stimulation of scaless fish.
Foods such as shrimp and whole cut fish (with guts).
