Anyone else using a surface skimmer?

[Rex113]

I just purchased a mini surface skimmer. The surface of my tank was getting completely covered with bio film and algae, and preventing the led lights from illuminating the tank. I run it for about one hour every other day and it works great. I have noticed that since more light is getting in that the brown algae that covered my rocks is now turning green and lots of tiny bubbles are constantly rising from the algae. It has an adjustable flow,I keep it on the lowest setting and it does not seem to disturb the shrimp at all. Is anyone else using one ?

[Mustafa]

I would recommend turning off the surface skimmer. Not only will it suck up larvae at some point (or possibly even shrimp), but that surface film you see is actually food for the shrimp. If you wait long enough, it will actually become thinner or even disappear at some point when your nutrient levels are lower. By "wait long enough" I mean you stop feeding altogether and wait. It can take months...or longer in some cases depending on how much of a nutrient load is already in your substrate and water (see sticky topic at the top of the forum page of a forum member who has not feed in way over half a decade and has reproduction regularly). You use algae and bacterial growth in your tank as a gauge for how much to feed. Things like voracious nerite snails and surface skimmers make that almost impossible, so it becomes very difficult to have a balanced system.