Skimmer oversized?

[xtlosx]

Personally I'd just clean it, leave it alone and not change anything for a week. Nothing good ever happens quickly.

I am at that point as well... This thing was a work horse for 2.5 months until last Saturday..... The only thing I can think of is last week my son was sick, as was my Wife and last Saturday I cleaned out kitchen with bleach.. the spray stuff... I showered afterwards, cleaned my hands several times, and replaced a nori sheet at night...

I'm wondering if there was the slightest bit of residue that killed whatever was good on the skimmer and started from scratch? It's not like I just took bleach and dumped it in there, but heck that's all I can think of.

 

[taylor t]

Until your anemone settles, you may experience your skimmer having little fits once in a while. How is the feeding schedule compared to before you got your nem? I've gone down to look at my tanks at night, and seen a cloudy mess, only to find the skimmer full in the morning. An 18-24" bag of water changing it's water, puts out a nice slow cloudy plume of water. Not sure of the size yours is right now... Just a thought...

I wouldn't worry much about it at the moment, if it was mine, I would skim wet, make sure it doesn't overflow outside the sump, keep an eye on it, and do frequent water changes. Nothing compares to consistant water changes when a system goes through issues. They all do.

 

[tiababygirl2]

crazy thought .maybe you need to raise the skimmer up..

 

[jayjigga]

How fast is the flow going through the sump? Is the skimmer getting enough interaction with the water? Too high of a flow rate will definitely affect efficiency.

 

[xtlosx]

How fast is the flow going through the sump? Is the skimmer getting enough interaction with the water? Too high of a flow rate will definitely affect efficiency.

No clue but nothing has changed since it was out in there.. It had foam for 2 hrs pulled some gunk out now lost foam again. At this point I'm leaving it be and just seeing what happens.

 

[xtlosx]

So just talked to their state-side tech support this morning, and happily it's all covered under warranty... They are convinced there is something in the water causing it to drop foam, and it's not the fact that it is over-rated...

Their recommendation is skim wet if I can and just get it to pull out what's not making it happy.. I turned off the skimmer for about an hour, and it's running with a nice foam moving some bubbly stuff over into the cup... It's been running for a few hours happily now so we'll see.

They are going to send me a new pump and impeller just in case that is my issue, which is nice.. The other recommendation they wanted me to do is get a nice tub of clean saltwater, and run the skimmer in there. If it runs normally in that water, there is something in my system..

Stay tuned folks, and thanks for everyone's feedback.

 

[xtlosx]

So I figured out what the problem was......

Sunday night I closed the ball valve going to my BRS dual reactor (GFO, Carbon) and the skimmer started up again... ran all night, all day yesterday and still running real wet right now... It's pulled up about half of the cup full of nasty sludge...

Moral of the story... watch your carbon\GFO... I'm wondering if my carbon did pull something out and eventually started leeching it back into the system periodically, that's when it killed the foam on the skimmer.

Thanks for the help everyone, I'm back in business.

 

[N3gative Cr33p]

I do not think you can overskim Tom, in fact, it gives you wiggle room when you overfeed or you forget to water change.

+1

This is always what I have always heard over the years.

 

[xtlosx]

+1

This is always what I have always heard over the years.

Obviously whatever was in the reactor was causing my problems... It's run for almost 3 days solid pulling out gunk (it's running wet until it's re-broken in).... I'm not sure what was in there, but certainly something was in there because all of a sudden the skimmer started working again. It isn't a coincidence..

I'm thinking of just running fresh carbon and GFO to get back to normal. If the skimmer loses foam again, then I know for sure there is something wrong with this batch, but for now it's working.

I just fed the tank and it dropped head into the cone, but not like it did before... I'm just going to leave it alone and see how long it takes to come back and working again. Maybe I'll run some fresh carbon\GFO tonight as well.

 

[keithhays]

Obviously whatever was in the reactor was causing my problems... It's run for almost 3 days solid pulling out gunk (it's running wet until it's re-broken in).... I'm not sure what was in there, but certainly something was in there because all of a sudden the skimmer started working again. It isn't a coincidence..

I'm thinking of just running fresh carbon and GFO to get back to normal. If the skimmer loses foam again, then I know for sure there is something wrong with this batch, but for now it's working.

I just fed the tank and it dropped head into the cone, but not like it did before... I'm just going to leave it alone and see how long it takes to come back and working again. Maybe I'll run some fresh carbon\GFO tonight as well.

It is much more likely that the carbon is removing organics that would otherwise be removed by skimming. When there are fewer organics in the water, it becomes harder and harder to skim what is left. This is true whether you are removing the organics with carbon or a skimmer.

 

[xtlosx]

It is much more likely that the carbon is removing organics that would otherwise be removed by skimming. When there are fewer organics in the water, it becomes harder and harder to skim what is left. This is true whether you are removing the organics with carbon or a skimmer.

I'm more curious as to why this happened after running carbon\gfo for almost 2.5 months now...... wonder what caused it to act this way.. I'm honestly thinking it might have been leeching something.. whatever happened last Saturday.

 

[Timber77]

it was probably your bleach/ cleaning product. . your furnace etc circulates it and it will cause it to drop foam.. I really wouldnt worry about overskimming, that skimmer on 190 gallons of water is never gonna be considered "oversized" if their even is such a thing. It does look like its appropriate sized or maybe a little underpowered depending what your keeping in the tank, 3 big tangs in a 5 foot tank are gonna keep it busy.

 

[xtlosx]

it was probably your bleach/ cleaning product. . your furnace etc circulates it and it will cause it to drop foam.. I really wouldnt worry about overskimming, that skimmer on 190 gallons of water is never gonna be considered "oversized" if their even is such a thing. It does look like its appropriate sized or maybe a little underpowered depending what your keeping in the tank, 3 big tangs in a 5 foot tank are gonna keep it busy.

Yea so it absolutely was simply not the over sized problem.... I didn't think so myself but had several people tell me. This skimmer should be just fine for this tank and I wasn't buying it..

I changed the GFO\Carbon today, ran it about 25% of what I should for this tank and the foam is running just fine and looking great. There are two scenarios I am thinking but can't confirm either.

A) Carbon & GFO were overdosed, and it sucked out too MUCH organics which caused some bleaching with my SPS, and the skimmer to compeltely act wonky. When the Carbon & GFO were stopped on sunday organics built back up and now running little carbon will get my tank used to cleaner water... slowly over the course of a few weeks.

B) Whatever was on my hands got snapped up quickly by the Carbon and or GFO and eventually leeched back into the system ****ing off the skimmer constantly.

I think A) is likelier, but at this point will never know.. Since I have been running GFO\Carbon for about two hours now the fish look happy, red slime in some spots is going away and I think my tank is back on a normal path.. Really shows you how ridiculously complex this hobby is no matter how hard we try to simplify it.