Skimmer adjustment

[agent-o2]

Ok here's the basic information,
it's my first marine aquarium, it will be Fish and live rock.
i have a 55 gal tank
~50 lbs of liverock
~27 lbs of aragonite / reef sand
2 maxi jet 1200's and 1 maxi jet 900
a HOT magnum with the micron filter
and an Amiracle sump with it's included skimmer

Ammonia and nitrites test 0


I removed the bioballs so the sump is just added water volume and a place for the skimmer right now.

My problem is i can get the skimmer to produce lots of wet skimmate or none at all, the adjustment I make between these two on the air valve is really minute.

The tank has been up and running with the rock for about a month now, and my question is which side of that minute adjustment is better? The lots of wet or apparently none?

[Reefland]

Hi agent_o2,

The problem here is the skimmer, it just isn't a decent one. However if you are stuck with it then a very wet skimmate would be better than none.

[agent-o2]

yeah I'm stuck with it for a while. And that's what I was thinking but wasn't sure if maybe I needed to wait for more organics to dissolve or if a different air valve might work better.

[Live Rock Ricky]

correct me if im wrong, you dont have fish in it right now???? so you wont be pulling too much out.

[agent-o2]

Nope no fish yet, still waiting for the quarantine to cycle to get my first couple.
So another question that arises should I be "feeding" the tank to keep things going?

[Live Rock Ricky]

i'd get a few damsel fish to help with the cycling

[agent-o2]

Well the display tank is cycled, I was just wondering if I needed to be doing something to keep it that way until I do get fish in it?
The quarantine is almost done, nitrites have been on the decline for a week now I think, so won't be long now. It would seem counter intuitive to me to get fish that I'm not planning on keeping to get the quarantine going as that would defeat the isolation of the quarantine. That's just my thoughts on that.