Skimmer working great, BUT...

[mystic7]

I was just wondering. My skimmer is dialed in and removing smelly stuff. I have the model that has a drainage tube from the collection cup. I'm getting small amounts of brownish water, but the inner tube in the collection cup is constantly caked with goo, even though I get some foam spillage. It seems the foam should be carrying the goo out to the collection cup, but it stays in the inner tube. It's not going back into the water, but I have to clean it like every 3 days. Do I need to increase air flow to carry the stuff out of the inner tube or is it working properly?

 

[mystic7]

I can't believe I've asked this simple question on 3 boards and still no responses! ;-)

 

[RobbyG]

It's normal for stuff to cake up on the inner tube, if the skimmer is improperly adjusted that could cause the problem, also it could be that your tank water is so clean it is not producing enough effluent to climb over the rim so the little it does make is collecting on the inner tube. Without more info nobody can answer your question, so don't get upset that you have gotten no responses.

What you need to post is what kind of skimmer you have Make/Model and what type of tank you have, size/reef tank?/age of tank. All the info a person would need to judge how much skimmate you should be getting. Lastly you need to tell us how much stuff it is skimming daily and a picture of what it looks like would help.

 

[AllenFord_SC]

Frequent cleaning of the skimmer will keep the sticky stuff to a minimum. Melev is constantly preaching the importance of a clean skimmer and I believe he has stated that he cleans his daily. A dirty skimmer is an inefficient skimmer. Try just wiping it out every other day and see if this helps with the drainage issue. How long has it been setup? If it's new and you never had one it may need some time to catch up with the tank before it becomes steady.

 

[TekCat]

Personally I figured that the longer gunk sits in the collection cup, more chances it has to start decomposing and leak back to tank.
Clean daily or if you're lazy like me every 2-3 days

 

[dchao]

2-3 days works for me too.

 

[mystic7]

ok, first off thanks for the info. Secondly, I'm not upset, I put a winky face in my second post ;-) The tank is 2 months old, I only have 3 fish in so far (it's a 180 FOWLR). It never skimmed anything until last week when I finally learned how to adjust the air AND water flow, since then it's been pulling stuff but like I said mostly brown watery stuff from the drainage tube, most of the gunk sits inside the inner tube. I have been cleaning it every 4 days, I'll move that up to daily (I'm not lazy, hee hee).

Thanks again.

 

[RobbyG]

What brand model skimmer?

 

[dchao]

second question: are you running carbon? Carbon will remove more or less than same stuff as a skimmer does. As the result, less skimmate is produced.

 

[TekCat]

I agree with dchao. With fresh carbon in a canister I hardly get any skimmate for about 2-3 days.