Skimmer care.

Hey Guys, who here regularly checks your skimmers power head? As we all know your skimmer provides bubbles that attract anything organic the bubbles membranes to carry it up wards taking it out of your water to avoid it from going through the nitrogen cycle turning it to nitrite to nitrate also the two phos components at the early parts then nitrogen at the end, right, well if you do not pre filter before that pumps impellor or if no protection for that pump, or you are not taking the pumps impellor area apart to clean maybe once each month to two months, then you are harming your tank life! The easiest way to explain is like this, your live rock or what ever is processing while your skimmer is in full swing, just as an example only say 30 percent of the organic materials in your waters from feeding, shedding, waste and so on. From that 30 percent comes say 7 percent nitrate and orthophosphate and phosphorus, these two, not nitrate, are the make up of phosphate. What do you think will happen when that skimmers power heads impellor area is getting clogged with all that is being sucked through it from what is in your waters? Slowing in pressure to skimmers venturi for one thing let alone the abrasive material and salt it self that will wear out your impellor, so now your live rock bacteria and protists are not just working on 30 percent it’s getting up to 40 or 60 percent or maybe more of the excess food, waste or what ever, your rock is also failing to properly convert these quickly and you now have a trace or two of ammonia along with more phos and nitrate to sicken symbiotic life and as we all know ammonia is the second most disruptive component in our reef tanks for PH, second only to CO2, which is abundant from lights out time or if you seal up your house and have heaters on. Maintenance is everything and everything needs to be maintained! I do not place much importance on skimmers, but you do, so clean everything with it regularly and look after its water pump!!!!