Sump Foam

[Elijahh]

Hi all, i added some life rock to my tank on the weekend and now my sump has started foaming up, and if I turn my skimmer on its like a volcano erupting out foam, so at the moment my skimmer is off.
There is no livestock in my tank just RO/ASW, its a new setup.
Does anyone know why this is happening?

 

[mcgyvr]

The rock was contaminated with something like a detergent.

By Life rock do you mean the Caribsea Life Rock fake painted stuff?

 

[Elijahh]

The rock was contaminated with something like a detergent.

By Life rock do you mean the Caribsea Life Rock fake painted stuff?

Yes that's the stuff


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Elijahh]

This is what happens when I turn my skimmer on.!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[NikonN8]

Turn the air down on your skimmer as much as you can. You're probably going to be doing a lot of water (saltwater) top-off as the cup fills and pulls that crud out of the water.

 

[NikonN8]

Also it might not be a bad idea to just do a substantial water change, like 30-40% to get a jump on having clean water. Otherwise you are in for a long while of topping off saltwater.

 

[sde1500]

lol wow that is quite a bit of foam. I'd toss in some carbon too, let it absorb some of what may be causing the problem. And probably just turn off the skimmer, not really needed in a new tank without livestock anyway.

 

[Fourstars]

Don't turn off the skimmer just dump it often. I think I'd get rid of that fake reef rock.

 

[Elijahh]

Turn the air down on your skimmer as much as you can. You're probably going to be doing a lot of water (saltwater) top-off as the cup fills and pulls that crud out of the water.

Ive closed it, opened it, adjusted it, nothing I seem to do makes a difference.

Also it might not be a bad idea to just do a substantial water change, like 30-40% to get a jump on having clean water. Otherwise you are in for a long while of topping off saltwater.

I'm currently adding Seachem Stability to the tank to get a bio load started, so I don't really want to do a water change at the moment.

lol wow that is quite a bit of foam. I'd toss in some carbon too, let it absorb some of what may be causing the problem. And probably just turn off the skimmer, not really needed in a new tank without livestock anyway.

I added a bag of carbon, left it in for a day and it didn't seem to make any difference.

Don't turn off the skimmer just dump it often. I think I'd get rid of that fake reef rock.

It's not really fake rock, it was originally live rock that's been cleaned, dried and infused with bacteria.

 

[Elijahh]

I turned the skimmer off, on and in between and it made no diffence, also I’m currently adding seachem stability so don’t really want to do a water change yet.
I did add a bag of carbon in my sump, this also made no difference.
And it’s not really fake rock, it’s aragonitic rock which has been infused with spored live bacteria.

 

[mcgyvr]

....And soap

 

[Elijahh]

Probably.! [emoji6]
But after having issues with live rock contamination in the past, I thought I'd try the life rock this time..



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[clevername]

carbon carbon carbon.

 

[T-dub]

If this is a brand new setup I would let the skimmer run. turn the air way down and let it go. Most new skimmers have a "break-in " period of about a week before you can set them correctly. That being said, the foam on the water like that does lead me to believe you have some kind of detergent in there so I would get some carbon ASAP too. That doesn't look like just skimmer foam!

 

[Elijahh]

If this is a brand new setup I would let the skimmer run. turn the air way down and let it go. Most new skimmers have a "break-in " period of about a week before you can set them correctly. That being said, the foam on the water like that does lead me to believe you have some kind of detergent in there so I would get some carbon ASAP too. That doesn't look like just skimmer foam!

How do I turn the air down on my skimmer? It's a reef octopus classic 110 int.

 

[T-dub]

I'm not familiar with that one but I'm sure you can Google it. Good luck!

 

[NikonN8]

I had a couple spare needle valves laying around that I utilized but in a pinch you can put a piece of tape over one side of the noise suppressor and roll up a section of paper towel or tissue for the other - let that expand to fill the hole a bit. It won't choke out the air flow, but it should retard it just enough to contain a little bit of the chaos.

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: Hi, let the skimmer run without any restrictions, water ever is in the rock is having a very positive effect on the skimmer, so let it do it's thing. You need to do a very large water change, 50% at least, ASAP. One more thing change your carbon every few days and maybe even use a filter sock or padding to see if that helps.This is one of the hazards of using non real live rock when you start a new system, the so called bad hitchhikers are no where near as bad as this could be. :fish1:

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: Hi again, is the foam that your skimmer is producing have a pinkish color to it, or is it just my computer screen coloring it a pinkish color? :fish1:

 

[Elijahh]

:fish1: Hi again, is the foam that your skimmer is producing have a pinkish color to it, or is it just my computer screen coloring it a pinkish color? :fish1:

No it's white foam, just bad lighting when I took pic I guess.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk