Coralife 65 gal superskimmer issues

[Angrycubano]

Please excuse my lack of forum etiquette as I'm a first timer. I have a 55 gal reef tank with 65 lbs. of live rock, fish, and mostly softies. I've had this skimmer for about 2 months and after a month it finally decided to start working....I did nothing to cause this BTW. I had to cut it off for a week to treat my tang for ick and now I can't seem to get it to work properly. It's overflowing into the collection cup and creating large amounts of microbubbles. Any suggestions besides using it as a potty for my son?

 

[sal-t-dawg]

The only time my skimmer had done this is after I treated my tank for red slime. I dont know what you used to treat your tang but sounds like you may need to do some water changes to get some of it out and hopefully this will calm your skimmer down.

 

[Angrycubano]

I've had 2 WC since I hooked it back up. I treated the tang with Herbtana and it suggested I turn off my UV and skimmer during treatment. As soon as treatment was done, I turned it back on and it began to overflow and microbubbles came out of the return cup like crazy. I even hooked a tube up from the collection cup back into the tank (just to give the skimmer more time to work itself out) and it just keeps overflowing. Do you think I'm undersized for my tank....the skimmer that is?

 

[sal-t-dawg]

Is it more like an eruption or just filling faster than normal?

 

[Angrycubano]

It's filling up way faster than normal. It's producing the foam but with larger bubbles and filling up the collection cup very fast. Usually when it was working, the foam would stay at the bottom portion of the cup and eventually push up the excess slowly to the top. Now the foam is going all the way to the top very quickly and overflowing where large amounts of water show up on the cup taking about 30 sec or so to fill the cup completely.

 

[NeveSSL]

Have you tried adjusting it down with the little valve?

There has obviously been a change in your water chemistry. Don't be afraid to adjust it. And then just keep an eye on it and adjust it back up as needed.

And to answer your other question, it may be a little undersized for a 55. It would depend on what your bioload is, which is how many fish you have, how much you feed them, etc. How many nutrients are being put into the tank.

Try adjusting it a little and let us know if that helps. It almost certainly will, but keep an eye on it. I had this exact skimmer back in the day and they're great for the money, but can be a little finicky.

And also, welcome to MTRC!!!

Brandon

 

[Angrycubano]

Thanks for the info guys and thank you for welcoming me Brandon. The only adjustment I have is the little red knob on the top of the pump side of the skimmer. That is adjusted all the way down. I have been adding coralvite, purple up, and kent's essentials since I've added the corals. I'm sure the bioload has increased since the first time I got the skimmer but it's been over a month and it's still acting up. I just wonder how long this will take so that I can finally use my skimmer?

 

[mixer911]

Stop adding that stuff and let your system stabalize a little. The skimmer will start working properly again. All that stuff you are adding is causing the surface tension of the water to go down and your skimmer is not going to work correctly. Plus most of that is not needed.

Hope this helps

 

[Angrycubano]

Interesting. So should I never add any of the stuff? I thought I needed to add those nutrients for corals? Is there something else you recommend to add Calcium, trace elements or should I not even mess with that?

 

[mixer911]

Depending on the amount of corals you have will determine what needs to be added. If you on ly have a few corals, then depending on the salt brand you use, water cahnges might providee enough calcium, alk, mag and trace elements to sustain your coral. If you have a lot then you will need to test the calcium, alk mainly to see where they stand. Once you find those #'s then you will know what needs to be added. You should only have to add calcium, alk and magnesium. No need for off the shelf things or snake oils.

 

[poolkeeper1]

It's that Herbtanna Junk IMO that has caused this Issue and when it's all out of your tank things will go back to normal. Just keep doing water changes until it goes back to normal. IMO that stuff don't work anyway and It smells like Furniture Polish!
Bill

 

[Angrycubano]

It did smell weird, but the tang is cool so maybe it was just father time. My Calcium is at 320 and I see that I need to get it to 400, so any suggestions on what to use instead of the "snake oil" I bought? Something that will not throw my skimmer outta wack.

 

[Angrycubano]

Oh, to answer your question, I get my water from the critter for now until I can figure out about an RO/DI unit and where to put it. I do 20% WC every 2 weeks and add some salt since theirs read 1.021 and I add enough to get it to 1.024

 

[mixer911]

Yea, the critters water has a low salinity, which is ok for fish only tanks, but reefs require a little higher salinity. If you bump it up to 1.026 your calcium in the water change water should be right about 400 or better for CA.

Now to address you calcium needs. there are 2 ways to go about this. You can use an y off the shelf calcium additives, but depending on what you use, you may not know what is in it (they all claim things, but you just want calcium chloride). or you can use pure calcium chloride. you can get that either at Bulkreefsupply.com or if you want to be adventurous you can go to walmart in the auto section and get Morton Safe T melt http://www.mortonsalt.com/products/road_sidewalk/safe_t_power.html

Easy as that

 

[atlantisaquari]

one other thing about this skimmer is that sometimes the drain hose ( the one coming back into bubble box inside the tank) is too far down and butts up against the foam in the bottom of the bubble box. this will always causes the overflow. to fix , simply pull the hose up about an inch or so. to allow the water to escape unimpeded.

 

[Angrycubano]

Actually I think I cut the drain hose too much and it causes a slight splash when it goes into the return cup cuz I was told that it might be an issue. I'm gonna do a WC this Friday and stop adding the "stuff" for a while until I get the skimmer back to normal. Then I will look into just adding calcium chloride and increasing the salinity to 1.026 and see what happens. I think you guys are right with the Herbtana and "stuff" has messed with the surface tension.

Thanks a bunch for all the info and a warm welcome.

 

[Angrycubano]

I did my WC yesterday and added salinity to critter's water to get it up to 1.025 and the skimmer fired up no prob. -winning

Thanks again for all of your help.