Update:
I was set to sell the skimmer with the new parts Jeremy sent me. However, I decided that I will give it once more chance and I am glad I did. I will get to that later
My tank crashed over the weekend and I lost all my fish and polyps closed on all and one suffered from RTN. My four year old was with me this weekend during the crash which happened over night (no, I did not ask nor accuse my daughter if she put anything in the sump and if even if she did it would be still be my fault). This left me with no real bioload to speak of. I may save the crash for another topic if I make one. It also won't be the main focus of this post.
I decided to put the skimmer up for sale. I started thinking about the effort Jeremy (coralvue) and Scott (reef specialty) made to see what could be done to help. I then said to myself why not try out the skimmer with the new parts.
Put everything together with the longer "nipple" on the silencer facing up used a picture I found online as a reference (for the pic: think of this hobby and then bob the builder).
Set the power to 6 and water lever is around 7" gate valve fully open. I turned it on. I was waiting for the noise but nothing. I slowly closed the gate valve to bring the bubbles just under the first white plastic ring. No chugging, rattling, banging or other noises. Well, I be dmd. Tomorrow I will try and take the water to the 6.5" mark.
If you having really some noise issues I would check to make sure that the air intake hose has no water in it and the valve is not closed too much for the power setting your at. The new silencer/muffler and the new body could the fix or just placebo effect? Not sure, but either case it's better noise wise.
I have ton of micro bubbles as to be expected though and I know it will drop. I will let it run for now and if anything changes I will post.
Sadly, now I have no bioload
I will let the tank go fallow for about 10 weeks just in case I was hit with something I didn't see or notice. Wait for the tank to stabilize and start over. Around the 7 week mark I will start to plan for new stock and place them in QT for a few weeks after I receive them.
Overall, the skimmer is still overkill IMO for this 57 Gallon DT with rs100 sump. Which could still present some problems if bio load is not enough. I took the skimmer off the sale forum.
Wish me luck!
Thanks,
Paul
PS on a side note, my four year old daughter was really attached to the purple dottyback. After telling her what happened she said: " It's okay daddy once the tank feels better we can start over", I almost lost it. Now if she only listen and not grow anymore
