Tunze 9004 skimmer overflowing... HELP!

[nim6us]

Okay so I got my Tunze 9004 installed yesterday, took a little doing but once I installed the extender bits for mounting it worked like a charm. It's sitting at the water level recommended in the Tunze documentation, the water line is about 1/2 way up the intake grill.

I plugged it up, everything seemed okay but when I got up this morning I found the top lid had been lifted up and the nasty foam was bubbling over the top and running back into the tank... YUCK! I emptied the collection cup and replaced it, but I noticed the lid is still being pushed up by the foam and I'm sure it will just overflow again. Also I'm not sure if this is right, but the collection cup is almost completely full of water, there's only about a half inch of the center collection pipe that's exposed, the rest is all under water. From some videos I've been searching for that collection cup area has either no water just the foam, or it's only about half full of water.

Not sure what I'm doing wrong, maybe the air tube that hangs off the back needs to be tightened? I've got a couple guesses, but before I just start screwing around I thought I ask for advice from people with experience.

It's currently turned off for the moment, but any help would be appreciated.

 

[LQT]

Is it brand new? Did you give it a vinegar bath prior to installation? Sounds like it's just breaking it in. Give it a while to develop a slimecoat / biofilm over everything. If you want, run it with the collection cup off for a bit. It just needs time to break in and will settle down in due time.

 

[JWClark]

Raise it to the minimum needed for some surface skimming. I just set one up on a 40 breeder frag/QT tank and have the water line, at most, 0.5cm up the intake grid. Overnight I had a wet foam w/ thin skimmate fill the cup but not to the point of overflowing. There is a break in period so this could just be due to residual chemicals on the skimmer plastic. I've started slowly pinching down the airline to produce a dryer skim.

If your set-up is new w/ dry rock like Pukani curing then this will happen for a week or so. When I cure rock I run an old Aqua C HOB and let it drain into a 5 gal bucket. Usually will get 3-4 gal of crap water for the first week before it starts calming down (this is from decomposing organics).

 

[Freds]

Make sure to cut the air way back as well.