Inconsistent Skimming, Reef Octo HOB Classic 100

Heuristic

Heuristic

New member
I currently have had my Reef Octo HOB classic 100 Protein Skimmer running on the back of my 75 gallon SW Tank for almost 4 weeks now. At first I thought my issues I was seeing was just related to it not breaking in, but the problems continue.

What I am seeing is, whenever I adjust the reservoir so it is skimming about how I think it should a few hours later a TON of water starts coming up and becomes really wet. I will pour that out, readjust, everything looks great and then out of no where I get like a water surge and it's all messed up again.

It's almost like my tank has a tide:lmao: .


Has anyone else had problems like this? Is there some adjustment or something that I am possibly missing?
 
Mine seems the same. I clean it, put it back and have to push the cup all the way down then gradually move it up or it'll bubble out which it did once.

I'm not sure if it's ok to just leave the cup up high or not.
 
Every time I start to lower it and get it dialed in, a few hours later I get another one of those surges and it goes flying up and instantly fills the reservoir.

I'm thinking there may be a combination of it still breaking in and a lack of consistent funk in the tank at the moment? I really have no idea. Right now I'm trying to dial it in so when it has a surge, it works correctly and then the rest it's just basically circulating water.
 
Also, I've ready some stuff about removing the foam block on the return helping. I don't really have very many micro-bubbles anymore, so I may give that a try
 
schnebbles said:
I was hoping someone else would chime in. Mine is probably about a monthly old.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

So our skimmers are about the exact same age. I've heard that they can take as long as a month to break in, but I was hoping I would get some consistency by now.
 
Ya, I wasn't too happy the day I saw it overflowing onto the floor. I keep a close eye on it now, hopefully it resolves itself.

I heard they are good skimmers, it pulls a lot of crap out.
 
Ya, I've heard the same as far as HOB filters go. Which is why I think that either it's not broken in yet, or I'm doing something wrong.
 
You are correct in your thinking, remove the foam block from the return. IME using that block in that skimmer does nothing but give you something else to clean.
Keeping the same height of the collection cup is crucial so moving the cup up or down 1/4" makes all the difference. What I did to insure height, was to place a piece of tape on the body of the skimmer and drew a line to document the height of the collection so it could be put back in exactly the same spot when it was removed for cleaning. So to determine height set the cup to a point where the large bubbles are right at the bottom of the tube and leave it for at least 8hrs before making another adjustment. IME this was the sweet spot and gave me the most consistent skim.
A few things to note are that you will most likely never get super dark skim with this skimmer, it will do a good job but you should expect wet skim. Also, the level of the bubbles will change each time you feed and lastly, the use of aerosol or spray style cleaning products in the same room of the tank will make the skimmer over skim for a little while.

Hope it helps
 
Thanks for the tips! I guess a lot of it is just moving it slowly until you find that sweet spot. I'll remove the block and then start trying to hone it back in.
 
Was sitting down towards the very bottom of the entrance just bubbling, not really making a film. An hour and a half later, I looked over and the entire reservoir is full again. Just moved it up another 1/4 of an inch. I really don't get this thing and why it is fluctuating this much.


If I remove the reservoir all together, about how thick of foam head should I have at the top?
 
Had some hope the other day, until I woke up yesterday morning and it was flooded..... I have moved it up a FRACTION and now in 24 hours it has zero skim.
 
so removing the block didn't stop the wet skim?

make sure your collection cup is completely clean, washed with plain water rub it clean, (especially the neck).. and mine sits fairly high, just at the top of the water line of the skimmer, bellow the bubbles. it should take 20-30 minutes for bubbles to start to creep up.. and once they do you'll get nice dark thick skimmate within a few hours. (I have the 2000H on my 75 gallon).. i clean the collection cup every 4-5 days, washing it in tap water. If it isn't completely clean it doesn't skim nearly as well. I think the design on our skimmers is the same, just the one you have is smaller.
 
Mishri said:
so removing the block didn't stop the wet skim?

make sure your collection cup is completely clean, washed with plain water rub it clean, (especially the neck).. and mine sits fairly high, just at the top of the water line of the skimmer, bellow the bubbles. it should take 20-30 minutes for bubbles to start to creep up.. and once they do you'll get nice dark thick skimmate within a few hours. (I have the 2000H on my 75 gallon).. i clean the collection cup every 4-5 days, washing it in tap water. If it isn't completely clean it doesn't skim nearly as well. I think the design on our skimmers is the same, just the one you have is smaller.
Click to expand...

Hmm... There is a yellowish film on it with all my testing. I cleaned it out pretty good, but that was probably a few weeks ago at this point. It's more broken in now, so I'll give that a shot tonight when I get home.

d2mini said:
If you want consistency and an easy to dial in, hassle free skimmer, get a LifeReef.
Click to expand...

I've heard nothing but good things with the Reef Octo stuff, but ya, I've been struggling. I am going to give it a little more time before I start considering making a switch to a different brand. I like the recommendation though, I'll definitely take a look. Thanks!
 
So, I decided I would contact CoralVue this morning to see if they had any tips and let me start out by saying, holy crap, I have never had a company contact me so quickly with advice. I submitted my support ticket with them just before 7:00 o'clock this morning and they contacted me no more than 5 minutes later.


Their advice is for me to run activated carbon for awhile. They said that there is no reason for it to overflow that drastically unless there's something in the tank water. I have never put anything in the water directly so I am interested to see if this actually works. On my way home from work I'm going to pick up some activated carbon and start running it to see if that fixes the issue.
 
It's been 2 hours since I've added the activated charcoal and I don't know if it's fixed anything, but the signs are positive early on. I am noticing far less micro-bubbles entering the second chamber section of the filter.
1.jpg


I have also had the canister further down than normal, for longer than normal and nothing weird is happening so far.


Another interesting turn, my clowns went from sleeping in the corner of the tank(seen in red) to now being in the little cave I thought they would be in.
2.jpg


Which leads me to, *** could have been in my water? LOL, I never once cleaned anything with any weird chemicals or anything. Bought Live Rock from a reputable LFS. Only thing I could think of was that Petsmart used some weird chemical to keep the tank clean while it was on display and what I used to clean it wasn't strong enough to get rid of it? I'd figured it would have been gone in 2 months with water changes though.
 
It flooded again. I may have pushed my luck a little too much. I'm going to continue to let the carbon run until tomorrow night and try to lower the canister after that.

I'm seeing some positive things with how it's reacting so I still have some hope.
 
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