no more foam from skimmer???

[spamreefnew]

hi all,i have been running an aqua-c urchin with a mag 3 on my system for a bout 3 years now and it always worked great for me. over the last few months i noticed that my skimmer was making clear water instead of the usual foam. i contacted aqua-c and they said "try to cut back on you pumping power" so i did,,,i went with a maxijet1200 pump. now 2 weeks later still no foam i have cleaned and checked the skimmer countless times,,still no foam my water params(testable ones) are all good. NOTHING i mean NOTHING in the tank has changed or been added in about a year. so what the heck can make a skimmer stop skimming? the thing is acting like it is running in a bucket of RO water. please any ideas will help.

ps i have great microbubles in the skimmer chamber,they just dont seem to be picking up the D.O.C. s,,they just burst in the skimmer neck leaving me with nothing but clear water in the cup????

 

[evsalty]

Have you pulled out the spray injector and the air inlet and cleaned them? Have you started to use anything new in the system like carbon?

 

[spamreefnew]

yes ALL parts are clean as a whistle,,,and no carbon or anything new.
in fact this morning i put on a lees airstone skimmer to see if that would skim just to rule out a bad skimmer. and the lees skimmer is making the same snow-white micro bubbles that burst,leaving nothing but crystal clear water in the cup.

 

[evsalty]

What is your fish load like and how much feeding do you do? Do you dose anything or feed phyto or anything else to the corals?

What is your sg at?

 

[spamreefnew]

sg=1.025
homemade food made from flash frozen crabs,shrimp,muscles,and,flake food

 

[spamreefnew]

4 1-1/2" clownfish lps and soft corals

kent 2-part&iodine

tank params all good,water crystal clear and no smell,corals are well

 

[evsalty]

Well sounds like you have a case of the WTC's.....water to clean LOL.

 

[chercm]

did u feed with Formula products or with garlic mix ?

 

[spamreefnew]

i do feed LOTS of fresh garlic in my food......is that it? GARLIC???????

 

[Faisal1976us]

your problem from homemade food , wash the frozen food before feeding and dont put your hands in the water before you wash by soap , this skimmer its so sensitive from oils .

 

[JHemdal]

I've never seen a case where skin oils from a person's hands caused a skimmer to stop collecting. However, assuming this could happen, rather than washing your hands with soap, just wear plastic gloves (sold for aquarium use).

The second point about washing lipids out of the food is just wrong. To rinse the food to do any good, you would also rinse out a substantial amount of water soluble vitamins, like Vit. C.

To test if this is even food related, clean the skimmer well, adjust it as best you can, then run it for 24 to 36 hours without feeding the tank - if it still isn't collecting foam, then it doesn't have anything to do with lipids in the food.

I agree with evsalty, there may just not be anything to skim right now.


Jay

 

[sedor]

Sounds to me like your venturi is blocked. A skimmer might stop skimming, but the foam is caused simply by air being injected in the water. I would check to see that the tube that pulls air from outside your sump is not clogged. Its got to have something to do with that.

And no skimmer is so sensitive that is just stops working because you forgot to wash your hands one day.

 

[evsalty]

Spam is it still not skimming or did you get it fixed?

While our AquaC skimmers are very sensitive to oils, they are not deathly sensitive to them. Oils will generally only stop them from foaming for a couple hours or so and sometimes for only minutes. But when using larger pump to overdrive these skimmers they can be even more sensitive to oils.

 

[addicted2reefin]

there is no air intake on these skimmer right?

 

[chercm]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15452461#post15452461 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spamreefnew
i do feed LOTS of fresh garlic in my food......is that it? GARLIC???????

yes it is garlic

 

[sedor]

I'm not convinced its garlic. I know a lot of people using Garlic Extreme and they run skimmers. If it shut down your skimmer the bottle would have a warning saying "Do not use if you have a skimmer." I will agree that the oils could definitely cause problems for an hour or so after feeding but there's no way garlic is what has shut down the skimmer for 2 weeks now.

 

[ssamick]

I had the exact same problem with my aqua c. The only thing I could contribute it to was a switch in food. Once I stopped feeding that food, and had sveral water changes it started skimming again. I don't know for sure but I think the food had a large amount of fish oil in it.