micro bubbles

[boozerell]

I put in a refugium and with RJ's help was able to eliminate the majority of the air bubbles. (Forgot to remove a divider, and had water spilling over instead of under.)
I still have some air bubbles, really small. I have a mag 7 return pump that is suppose to do 700 gallon an hour. Do you think the return pump is pulling the water through the system too quick and that's why I have the bubbles? I have filter socks in place, so I don't think it's that. I do have the return spout about 8 inches away from the over-flow. I don't think that's it though, as it's angled away. If you have any ideas of things I could try, I'd sure appreciate it.

 

[Burgman]

Hi,

Do you have the water entering your sump from your tank submerged or is it above the water line in your sump? Putting it below the water line in your sump might reduce some or all of the bubbles.

Dave

 

[EYESEEU]

Perhaps its the discharge of the skimmer?

 

[boozerell]

The water comes down the tube and the tube is in a cyclinder. It fills up this cyclinder and overflows on a platform, that has two filter socks. The water runs down through the filter socks, that are half submerged, runs over a wall were the refugium is. Live rock and cheato is in here, then goes through a wall, where a blue sponge is and through another wall to where the return pump is. (These walls have cut outs at the bottoms.)
I'm thinking your right, Dave that the problem is with how the water comes in. That's the way it came, though and I don't think I can change it. It's made by pro-clear aquatic tech.

 

[boozerell]

The skimmer is in the display tank. I wanted to use it has a refugium, has lights and so forth. It said it could be used as a refugium or berlin style. I went with this because I only had a width of 11 inches under the tank and this was all I found, that fit the dimensions.

 

[CleveYank]

Since I myself, like 10 times tank turn over. I would not think that on a 55 gallon tank 400-450 gph is too strong. Your Mag 7 has head loss so the 700 GPH is not the actual GPH returning to your tank. Inside of your box with the directions for the pump there is a "headloss" chart. If you lost that see: Marine Depot dot com / powerheads / Supreme MAG / middle of that page is a head loss chart. 4 to 6 feet is 400 to 480 GPH.

Clear sumps are great for checking micro bubble source. Place flourescent light source behind the sump and get up close and personal with a magnifying glass if you need too (never had to do that) and you will see the reflection off of the little bubbles. One of my 90's with MAG 7 return I had to use perferated tank divider plastic tide to eggcrate to stop the bubbles created from the input water from getting picked up by my MAG 7 return and shooting into the display.

In another sump I had to isolate the return pump by placing a half gallon clear ice cream container that allowed sump water to overflow in it with the return pump down inside of it. (Sump level had to be at least 1 inch above the container or you will create the same condition you are trying to remove. Since bubbles unless being pulled by 2000 plus pump do not usually go down. This made the water being pulled by the pump bubble free. Another trick I have used is to place the return pump inside of a small bucket...same result as above. Isolate or deflect...either will do the trick most of the time.

 

[boozerell]

Thanks, CleveYank! I'll try that.