I got a skimmer stand but there is water coming out through the airline tubing hole. See the picture. Also because the water is getting in the airline tubing and causing the pump to make the water bounce up and down in the skimmer.
Adam,
I had vince send me your skimmer for testing. I discussed the volute settings with him and their impact on the skimmer but he indicated that you & or him tried every possible setting and couldn't get it stable. He also indicated that the tank this was one was 30 days old at the time with what I would consider to be a very low nutrient system at present. This was a couple weeks ago so I told him that I would be happy to do some testing on it. Since I own a the SM250, I figured this would be a great opportunity to run some tests on your skimmer to verify my suspicions while also getting some hands on experience with this skimmer.
You had also mentioned water coming from the venturi line hole in the wedge pipe. I went back and looked at your photos and that was an easy one. Once I had your skimmer in front of me I was able to reproduce that and it was the result of the wedge pipe being closed enough to kink the venturi line and not fill the hole in the wedge pipe up well. This also could have had resulted in restricted air flow into the pump which would have the same result as closing the volute up more. Here is a close up of your photo showing the venturi line where it enters the wedge pipe. If you look at the line, you can see the kink and the gap between the venturi line and the wedge hole opening.
None the less, it arrived today. He did a great job in taking care to pack it VERY well. As soon as I got it home, I setup a 20 gallon tank using water from my heavily stocked but well skimmed reef. I also added a bit of nasty skimmate from my SM250 to insure there were plenty of DOC's in the water so there was something for it to skim. I removed the collection cup drain so the simmate could drain back into the sump for consistency purposes but also so it could get a chance to settle in. RE recommends removing the cup completely for the first 24 hours or so but I like my method. Keep in mind that these tests are being done with plenty of dissolved organics in the water so the settings I find in my testing in a controlled environment would not represent the ideal settings for any other tank but instead could serve as a starting point.
I started with a depth of between 6.5 and 6.7 inches and wide open on the wedge pipe. I like to use/adjust the sump level to get the skimmer dialed in and fine tune using the wedge. The idea is to not restrict the effluent line on the skimmer by closing the wedge. If you're going to close the wedge, you shouldn't need to close it much at all.
I've started at 4.5 turns out on the volute. I got a sharpie pen and marked the volute at full closed position drawing a line straight across the top of the white part on the volute and the gray piece that threads into it. This line provides a great point of reference as far as knowing exactly how many turns out you are. Below is the line on the white part. You can't see the line on the gray part because the line is 180* on the other side because I'm at 4.5 full turns out.
Below is a video I took at about the 4.5 hour mark. In 24 hours, It will have settled down a bit so I can do a rough tuning then once it's broken in, I'd have it fine tuned. So far, this thing is a foam making machine. I'm very pleasantly surprised granted I did add skimmate so it had something to skim.
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Here is a picture of the collection cup lid 45 or so minutes after the video was shot. Dirty foam was coming out the vent holes and this is right around the 5 hour mark. I've since lowered the sump level to 6.25 knowing that there is a fairly decent load in this test tank and I'm just getting to know this thing.
Some comments. The higher the load, the lower the sump level, the lower the load the higher the sump level. Higher DOC water will result in better/thicker foam so ideal depth would be lower than low DOC water. This also accounts for the fine tuning that you do over the first month. As the skimmer catches up and the DOC's decline the foam head will tend to lower or not generate as dry of bubbles. That's when you do the fine tuning and the first thing I do then is increase the height of the bubbles inside the skimmer. If you start with your wedge wide open, you can close it a fraction of an inch at time to fine tune the level but if you need to go more than 1/8th turn closed than I'd raise the sump level a 1/8th of an inch if at all possible. From there, if the skimmer is stable, I would turn the volute closed a fraction of an inch and see how the skimmer responds. Then go back to the starting point and a fraction of an inch the other direction. All while keeping mental or written notes on how the skimmer responds. Closing the volute will result in higher water level in the skimmer but less air. Opening it will result in more air and lower water levels in the skimmer.
I will update again tomorrow once it's settled down a bit as it starts to build up some slime coating.
