Need help with Coralife SS problem

Q

Quil

New member
Hello, this is my first post on reefcentral, and unfortunately I'm in dire need of some help. My skimmer is possessed. The skimmer has been up and running for a few weeks now, and up until the last week or so, has been running fine. The skimmer will be operating fine, minimal micro-bubbles in the tank, and all of a sudden will stop skimming and start dumping massive amounts of micro-bubbles in the tank. If I leave it alone long enough, or sometimes adjust the water height level a little, it will eventually start skimming again and the bubbles will subside.
What could be the problem with this thing? I tried looking for a blockage in any of the tubes or anything out of the ordinary, and everything looks fine. Little help here would be greatly appreciated.

BTW, tank is a 60g with approx 100lbs of live rock, 60 lbs of live/dead sand mix. Using the Current USA Dual Satellite PC lighting. I've got hermits, snails, an emerald, and a couple of dwarf lionfish.
 
I will check it to see...not sure if I can get the silencer open, but I'll try blowing through. Thanks for the idea.
 
Checked it out, and it's fine. Even tried running the skimmer with the silencer unhooked. Loud as hell, and still not working right. Thanks for the idea though.

Anyone else?
 
Yes. Do you think that would have something to do with it. It's skimming fine right now, but I know that pretty soon I'll have a tank full of bubbles and no skimming again. Can't figure out why it will dump all the bubbles and then eventually be fine again....seems like if there was a problem, it wouldn't skim at all.
 
alot of dechlorinators will mess with your skimmer, try and find one called "prime" (red bottle), it shouldnt mess with your skimmer much or at all
 
i do seem to remember going through that stage with my CSS 220, it took it about a month to break in and now it works good and i get some really, really sluggish nasty green stuff that stinks so bad, a turd could be used as an air freshener compared to this stuff. No joke, i even called the company, i thought i had it with the skimmer also, it just took forever to break in.
 
OK, I think I may have stumbled onto a part of the problem....it only seems to stop skimming when I feed. I only have one fish in my tank right now, a dwarf lion, who is eating mostly mysis shrimp. I get the shrimp on the end of a kitchen knife, and dump them in, so my hands aren't in the tank at all while feeding. Think there's something to do with the food that is causing the skimmer to fail? I really need help with this, I'm ready to take this thing out of here and buy another one. I've been up and running with the skimmer for almost a month now, so I would have thought it had "broken in" by now.

When it is skimming, it works like a charm...lots of nasty stuff, both in the collection cup and lining the walls of the cup too. Then all at once, the skimmer itself is full of microbubbles which are dumped back into the tank through the diffuser, and the bubbles in the collection cup are just fizzing...no skimming at all.
 
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