Gary's out of town, and I need help!
- Thread starter jflat
- Start date
Well, Daniel just left. THANK YOU!!
The wet floor is by the door to the house, where the skimmer is, and the bucket that collects the "stuff." (Please excuse my ignorance...Gary tells me stuff, but I can't remember it all!)
Well, it appears that the bucket collecting the "stuff" that comes out of the skimmer overflowed onto the floor. YUK! But it doesn't smell bad!
After I had dinner (hadn't eaten since 6:30 am est in Montreal), my brain started working. I tested the salinity, and it was WAY high. 1.030!! So then I decided to plug in the skimmer to see what would happen. Well, it sucked the water level in the sump down too low, and then sucked air, so I unplugged it (great advice from Mimi!). I realized water wasn't coming from the auto topoff. So I thought maybe it was set too high. But I don't know how to fix that. So I opened the topoff (40 gal that Gary left) and noticed that the hose that takes water to the tank was disconnected from the powerhead! So I hooked that up, and let the water start flowing.
I plugged in the skimmer, and voila, it works!! That is about the time Daniel showed up. Which was perfect, because he got the beckett adjusted so it wasn't skimming so wet. He also cleaned and adjusted the big skimmer in the rock tubs, which was overflowing, too, when I got home.
Thank you so much for your help! I am so glad I knew to log on here and ask for help!!
Thanks again!!
Jenn
The wet floor is by the door to the house, where the skimmer is, and the bucket that collects the "stuff." (Please excuse my ignorance...Gary tells me stuff, but I can't remember it all!)
Well, it appears that the bucket collecting the "stuff" that comes out of the skimmer overflowed onto the floor. YUK! But it doesn't smell bad!
After I had dinner (hadn't eaten since 6:30 am est in Montreal), my brain started working. I tested the salinity, and it was WAY high. 1.030!! So then I decided to plug in the skimmer to see what would happen. Well, it sucked the water level in the sump down too low, and then sucked air, so I unplugged it (great advice from Mimi!). I realized water wasn't coming from the auto topoff. So I thought maybe it was set too high. But I don't know how to fix that. So I opened the topoff (40 gal that Gary left) and noticed that the hose that takes water to the tank was disconnected from the powerhead! So I hooked that up, and let the water start flowing.
I plugged in the skimmer, and voila, it works!! That is about the time Daniel showed up. Which was perfect, because he got the beckett adjusted so it wasn't skimming so wet. He also cleaned and adjusted the big skimmer in the rock tubs, which was overflowing, too, when I got home.
Thank you so much for your help! I am so glad I knew to log on here and ask for help!!
Thanks again!!
Jenn
Angela Short
New member
:lol: Foggy, I bet sometimes in the wee hours of the night while she is playing second fiddle to Reefcentral she wishes Gary was never welcomed by a nice fellow reefer! :lol: :lol:
Wow, Glad Daniel came to help out! Naturally it all works fine till the only one who knows how to do it is gone
. Glad you have a handle on things now. Gary is just determined to make you a reefer one way or another! Oh and I love the screen name. When I first met you in Chattanooga you introduced yourself as "Gflats wife". That could have been a good name! :lol:
Wow, Glad Daniel came to help out! Naturally it all works fine till the only one who knows how to do it is gone
. Glad you have a handle on things now. Gary is just determined to make you a reefer one way or another! Oh and I love the screen name. When I first met you in Chattanooga you introduced yourself as "Gflats wife". That could have been a good name! :lol:
The saga continues....
The saga continues....
Well, the water seems to be leaking from the plumbing connected to the pump for the skimmer.
So the skimmer is unplugged again. I am not sure if I will try to fix this, or what to do.
I don't think the tank can run with no skimmer for 4 days, so I am not sure what to do....
:mad2:
The saga continues....
Well, the water seems to be leaking from the plumbing connected to the pump for the skimmer.
So the skimmer is unplugged again. I am not sure if I will try to fix this, or what to do.
I don't think the tank can run with no skimmer for 4 days, so I am not sure what to do....
:mad2:
ocd_mariner
New member
I hate leaving tanks.
My chiller decided not to turn on while I was away this weekend visiting my parents. When I got home, the fish were sitting around smoking cigars and pouring water on top of the hot rocks.
Luckily they all survived. But I freaked.
My chiller decided not to turn on while I was away this weekend visiting my parents. When I got home, the fish were sitting around smoking cigars and pouring water on top of the hot rocks.
Luckily they all survived. But I freaked.
Angela Short
New member
When I first set my skimmer after its been cleaned I have to back it way down. If I set it for the bubbles to be where they should be it goes crazy and causes a flood when the intiial oily film gets blown off. I think having your hands in the tank and the cleaning causes a film in the water and when it finnally works itself out the skimmer just starts pumping water if the bubbles are set to high.
I have my skimmer turned off more than on it seems most of the time. Many people run skimmerless and have nice tanks.
I have my skimmer turned off more than on it seems most of the time. Many people run skimmerless and have nice tanks.
geekdafied
In Memoriam
I had a CPR bio bak pak2 skimmer on my tank a long time ago, I notice my tanks water level dropping, but it was over a periods of 2 or 3 weeks, which I figured it was just the summer heat doing it. One night I filled it up and went to bed, got up the next morning and went to work, came home form work and the water level dropped from being full to about 3/4's full. It was a 75g tank, thats a lot of water missing. The floor wasnt wet anywhere that I noticed but the level of the water dropped below the powerhead that powered the skimmer and it was gurglin. I unplugged it, filled it back and it was fine. The skimmer was like a month old when that happened.
Angela Short
New member
So where was the water?
gflat65
New member
Thanks for everyone's help while I am away
. Here is my (remote) theory, having not seen it...
I had been skimming very dry for a long time. I started skimming wet a few weeks ago, but it required a number of adjustments to the gate valve to get it skim wetter (set in one place, it would start skimming heavy, then back off, so I slowly adjusted it over a week or so to skim wetter. When the tube came out of the ATO pump, the level in the sump dropped, causing the skimmer to suck air. Some friends came over to check on the tanks, cats and ferret and noticed the noise from the skimmer and realized there wasn't enough water, so they added more RO/DI. I have noticed that after the skimmer is shut off and restarted, it tends to go nuts for a minute or two, requiring a gate valve adjustment to stop the bleeding (much more often when it is cleaned than when it is just unplugged and plugged back in, though). I assume that sicne it was running with so much air, that must have somehow effected the hydraulics of the skimmer, causing it to over flow the reservoir when it had enough water again (haven't put one of the shut offs on the reservoir because so far, just having the hose submerged has always killed skimmer production). I guess it just went too nuts for the subemerged tube to stop the flow, though... How the salinity ended up high, I haven't yet figured out... I would have expected low. I guess it is a good thing the tube popped off the ATO pump, in retrospect, or I would have replaced ~30 gallons of salt water with RO/DI. Jenns reports are that everythign looks okay aside from cyano blooms in two other tanks (hers and the 120), likely due to higher temps than we expected (heat was set while we were away, not the air).
Today's problem concerns me. Jenn said the water is leaking out where the flex hose connects to the PCX 55. It hasn't leaked there before, so I may have a cracked volute or something. I'm glad Murphy got confused on this one
. I guess he was like a kid in a candy store-wasn't sure which tank to mess with first with too many choices. He hasn't come around in a while, so I guess I can't complain about him too much. Two more nights in (Old) Montreal and I'll be home...
Thanks again to all who helped, esp. Mimi and Daniel. I think those two housecalls/PM's/however you made contact gave Jenn more confidence.
. Here is my (remote) theory, having not seen it...I had been skimming very dry for a long time. I started skimming wet a few weeks ago, but it required a number of adjustments to the gate valve to get it skim wetter (set in one place, it would start skimming heavy, then back off, so I slowly adjusted it over a week or so to skim wetter. When the tube came out of the ATO pump, the level in the sump dropped, causing the skimmer to suck air. Some friends came over to check on the tanks, cats and ferret and noticed the noise from the skimmer and realized there wasn't enough water, so they added more RO/DI. I have noticed that after the skimmer is shut off and restarted, it tends to go nuts for a minute or two, requiring a gate valve adjustment to stop the bleeding (much more often when it is cleaned than when it is just unplugged and plugged back in, though). I assume that sicne it was running with so much air, that must have somehow effected the hydraulics of the skimmer, causing it to over flow the reservoir when it had enough water again (haven't put one of the shut offs on the reservoir because so far, just having the hose submerged has always killed skimmer production). I guess it just went too nuts for the subemerged tube to stop the flow, though... How the salinity ended up high, I haven't yet figured out... I would have expected low. I guess it is a good thing the tube popped off the ATO pump, in retrospect, or I would have replaced ~30 gallons of salt water with RO/DI. Jenns reports are that everythign looks okay aside from cyano blooms in two other tanks (hers and the 120), likely due to higher temps than we expected (heat was set while we were away, not the air).
Today's problem concerns me. Jenn said the water is leaking out where the flex hose connects to the PCX 55. It hasn't leaked there before, so I may have a cracked volute or something. I'm glad Murphy got confused on this one
. I guess he was like a kid in a candy store-wasn't sure which tank to mess with first with too many choices. He hasn't come around in a while, so I guess I can't complain about him too much. Two more nights in (Old) Montreal and I'll be home...Thanks again to all who helped, esp. Mimi and Daniel. I think those two housecalls/PM's/however you made contact gave Jenn more confidence.
