Re: Cheap skimmers

[Shireen Gonzaga <whimbrel at comcast_net>]

Shireen said:
> > and with the help of your good circulation system, the
> > live rock will provide good biological filtration.

Tom said:
> You can do it without the live rock if you want.
> A refugium can be veryu effective with nothing more than the Caulerpa.

Do you mean a refugium with  caulerpa _and_ aragonite?
Would you need a skimmer/skilterr for that setup to take out
the more complex organics?

If you mean only caulerpa, then I don't understand something:
what does the caulerpa suck out of the water? Isn't the point of
live rock/aragonite (that have lots of great habitat for bacteria)
to break down ammonia --> nitrites --> nitrates, and it's the
nitrates that get sucked up by caulerpa? Or can caulerpa also
remove ammonia and nitrites or other broken-down organics.

Obviously, I'm chemistry-challenged! It would be nice to get a
clear explanation about how all this works for a marine tank.
Calling Dr. Tom....  :-)

cheers,
	sg


Shireen Gonzaga
Baltimore, MD