Equipment: Skimmer

Although not hugely powerful, the skimmer makes a big difference to water quality, especially when there is a mass sporulation of algae, which can turn the water a bit turbid. It's a good little skimmer that's unobtrusive within the tank, and produces about 50ml/day of concentrated skimmate if running smoothly. The only complaint I have is that the inlet hole is a bit small and regularly clogs with algae, which basically stops skimming. On the other end, the outlet also becomes clogged with algae, in which case it over-skims. I guess most marine skimmers are not designed to cope with large amounts of vegetation as most will be run in reef systems. If I were to set up a new system, I would probably choose a model with larger inlets and outlets, or attach some form of strainer to keep out algae.