Protein Skimmer problem con't 2

Johnny38

New member
Dear friends,
I post a thread about my EuroReef CS6-2 on last week. First, I need to thank you so much for giving a great tip of how to give a good maintenance to skimmer. However, after giving a vinegar bath to the skimmer overnight and return it to its workplace for 4 days, it is still perform the same... I still don't get much foam comparing the time when the tank is newly setup.

Is it because there is not much bio load in my tank? 120G with only 2 yellow-tailed damsel, 2 common clown, 1 six-line wrasse along with some snails, crab, and shrimp. I have around 120 lb of live rock with 150 lb of coral(dead) sand. Tank has been setup up and running since Apr/1 with filtation of 25w UV, skimmer, active carbon, ozone, 10G refugium, and ?lb of nitrate sponge.

However, when I get the LR here in Taiwan, it is the worse quality I even seen (not cured, directly got for ocean... even got live SPS/Christmas tree on the rock, by the way, it is still hanging well in the tank) My tank got so stink for a good two weeks... And I still see the detrition from the dead organism from the rock falls everywhere on the sand bed. I checked the water now, but it shows 0 ammona, 0 Nitrite, 0 nitrate with 0 Po4 (Redsea test kit for ammonia + No2, Salifert No3 test, Azoo Po4 test)

I am very surprised to see the water quality, and I think probably the test kit has expired since I am using the kits over 5 years now... However, that is not the point here. My tank now is over-run by Cyanobacteria (red slime alage), but I still don't see the skimmer is skimming a good amount of foam. I don't think my water is that clean enough for skimmer not performing a good result.

Could I get help from you? Please advise if there is anything I could do now to help my skimmer working.

Thank you!
 
Here is the pix for your reference, help me ""please""~~~
44370filtration.JPG

Sump design

44370_e__007.jpg

Skimmer location

44370_e__005.jpg

All possible foam I could get

Thank you!
 
Two things that I notice from the pictures you posted....

1. For the bioload you have, and the amount of time the tank has been setup, you have decent skimmate production that is building on the inside riser tube (needle wheel venturi skimmers pull a more dry skimmate by nature).

2. The "umbrella effect" of the water coming out of the standpipe on the skimmer almost makes me think your venturi might be clogged. Take the face pump off the skimmer. Pull the airline from the venturi nipple. Make sure you can flow through the airline just fine, and no calcium deposits or salt creep have formed. Then hold the venturi up towards a light and make sure you can see through the nipple on the venturi where the airline attaches to. There is a possibility some calcium deposits or salt creep have formed in there.
 
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