Low skimmate volume

tb27272

New member
I have a MR3R skimmer on my 180 gallon aggressive tank. I have never gotten the amount of skim that I thought I would be getting. Last week, I cleaned it (considerable amount of gunk build up on the tower walls), and it has not produced any skim since. It has produced foam in the column, but none of it has reached the to the collection cup at the top. Should I just give it time to recoat the walls and leave it alone? The nitrates stay about 10 ppm. I am running a DSB and algae scrubber. I have a moderate to heavy fish load and they are well fed, I would think there would have to be proteins to be skimmed
 
I have an ASM mini on my 30G tank right now and previously I wasn't getting any skimmate into the cup but only clots of skimmate along the inside of the columns walls. I cleaned it out and adjusted the skimmer so the bubbles instead of rising 65% of the way up in the collector cup column now rise about 80-90%. This is getting me more skimmate and no more clotted skimmated on the columns walls. It took me about a week to fine-tune it so I get desired skimmate volumes.
I also have to recheck that everything is fully functional after each water change because my ASM, like most[so I've heard] is very unstable and needs to be readjusted every time something is done to the tank.
 
The water level in a MRC skimmer is only supposed to be 3-5 inches up into the skimmer column, and you cannot go about the level of the becketts.
 
Back
Top