new skimmer and micro bubbles.. help?

[TOURKID]

hi all

I have a 45 gal bow front with 1 anemone and 1 clown.. few hermits and snails, lr, polyps....

I installed a coarl life super skimmer yesterday and microbubbles have taken over my tank!!

can these cause any harm to anything in the tank?

will the bubbles subside or is there something i can do to the bubble box to remedy this?? thanks

 

[jim293]

Are you using the bubble diffuser? I have a coralife super skimmer and this thig works great.

 

[TOURKID]

jim... yeah im using the bubble diffuser and i have a horrible amount of bubbles coming from it. my white floss is butted up agianst the black foam, i cut the water outlet so there was an inch of space in the box, ive 'played' with it. nothings working as of yet...

did u have bubbles your first few days?

i was thinking out cutting the outlet tube somemore, or even off... but im restraining myself considering its not easily replaceable....

are the bubbles harmful to the fish or anemone?

 

[sle.simon]

well when i first got my skimmer i had the same problem but after about 2 days the mircobubbles diminished. i say give it a couple days and see what happens.

 

[TOURKID]

*veryimpatientgirl* ok ok its been about 24 hours.. ill wait another 24..

 

[slowECUdiver]

my CSS 125 took about 5 days to fully break in. i tried running it hanging on the back of the display tank, but i had the bubble problem. now that it is hanging on the sump, i still have some micro bubbles, but thankfully they're contained in the sump.

i'd say give it a FULL week to fully break in.

FWIW, i just cleaned mine out completely last night (whew did that collection cup stink!) and it took a few hours to start skimming properly again...but this morning, i'm already seeing more skimmate! yippie!

 

[rooroo]

Microbubbles won't harm anything in the tank.

 

[TOURKID]

ok. it wasent working right. but now it is!!! only.... im not sure what fixed it.... i minorly adjusted, moved and messed with just about everything *lol*

but... NO microbubbles, and its skimming now whitch it really wasent earlier. i dident do anything to the bubble box... the skimmer chamber used to be filled with bubbles, now its only filled with bubbles from the middle of the canister on up. I looked at a ton of pictures of these in use and they are all like this.. just wonder what i did might come in handy when i hafta move this thing to the back of the tank next week.. construction week !!!

 

[Vincerama2]

Skimmers take time to "break in". For one thing, there is often stuff on the acrylic left over from when the acrylic and skimmer were manufactured. This stuff will disappear (harmlessly) as the skimmer runs for a while. A nice "slime coating" will build up from the aquarium water, this kind of helps a skimmer work a bit better, that takes time too. Microbubbles, in my experience with several skimmers, will probably be less of a problem as the "break in" finishes.

Some skimmers are notoriously finicky and change with even tiny water level changes. others are "plug and play" and don't require fiddling. (The Prizm is fiddly, the Remora is PnP).

Microbubbles won't harm anything. Consider the bubbles in the ocean, especially near reefs! the problem with bubble is that they tend to gather UNDER things, so a rock bridge might gather bubbles under it. I suggest blasting out caves with a turky baster to displace the bubbles. Remember that those bubbles are exposing the rock to air for as long as they are there and you don't want that (the coralline won't grow there, etc).

In anycase, it seems like you are OK now. And have learned one of the first/hardest lessons of reef-keeping ... patience!

V