After almost a year, I finally figured out one thing that was the cause of periodic overflowing with my alpha 200. Since I have had the alpha 200, I have experience episodes of crazy overflowing now and then. In time, I figured out what some of those causes were. For example, when we used a certain appliance cleaner or cleaned the floors with a certain cleaner, those cleaners would cause an overflow. Once the causes was identified, the fix was simple.
However, my 200 still had this tendency to overflow after 2 or 3 or 4 weeks for no reason that I could find. I could see the change in the bubbles and foam over a matter of several days to a couple of weeks,,,, leading up to the overflow. First the bubbles in the lower chamber would start moving down towards and then to the bottom bubble plate. Also the bubbles in the neck just below the collection cup would start to swirl in all directions rather than just move upwards. I would have to start to open the outflow value to keep it from overflowing. Eventually, despite being in full open position, it would overflow. Looked just like if something was in the water making it overflow.....such as epoxy, etc.
I had ruled out any chemicals in the air or added to the water, etc. But couldn't figure out why the bubble pattern would change like this. Then I finally realized the problem.
The red plastic tube that inserts into the skimmer body; connecting the silicone tube from the pump to the inner skimmer body, would slowly start to slip out. It wouldn't take much to slip out of the inner part of the skimmer body before the pump output starts to leak into the outer segment of the skimmer body. Once this starts to happen, the bubble pattern becomes more turbulent, the bubbles start to move down to the bottom bubble plate, and eventually the whole thing starts to overflow after a few days. It looks just like something was added to the water, but is simply caused by that red tube slipping out a bit.
A little bit of super glue to secure that red tube from slipping out fixed that problem and now after a few months,,,,no more overflowing problem. The skimmer is very consistent now.
Perhaps I am the only one that was not aware of this potential problem?! But in case anyone else was experiencing a similar problem can consider this as a possible cause for them too.
Im joining the club too lol just got my alpha cone 200 last night
