WH
On the internet the verdict seems to be split. I do have a Tomato Clown fish and do not want to loose him or others so I am proceeding with caution. I do want to improve my water quality with the skimmer. I put a lot of sponges in the filter to cut back on the micro bubbles entering the aquarium.
You'll want to make sure to clean those sponges regularly. They will build up gunk and cause back pressure on the return, causing the skimmer performance to fluctuate, or like in the case of
@steveb , you could potentially backwash water on to your floors. My recommendation would be to let it settle in, like
@ITreefer said. Especially with a HOB external, the return to the tank will develop algae and film. They will do a decent job fishing in some of the extremely small microbubbles, in addition to the chamber itself. In the meantime, I wouldn't worry about the bubbles effecting your fish health. As far as your research online, especially if you're going to a large forum, it doesn't matter what you're trying to find out. Given enough people, there will be people arguing both sides of the point, whether right or wrong. I just know that I've personally never met someone that ever had an issue with microbubbles effecting the health of their fish. Humans are very good at finding patterns, even when there isn't one.