Tunze 9004 Skimmer Question

Psyire

Psyire

Premium Member
Hello,

I've had my Tunze 9004 skimmer running on my tank for over a month now. At first I had the air cut back quite a bit or it would overfoam. This was during the later stages of my tank cycling and I had a bunch of green algae still. Now my algae has died off with my cycle ending and I've noticed that for the past week or two I've had to have my air valve almost 100% open or the skimmer wouldn't really skim much. For the first few weeks I was pulling out a whole cup of green mung every day.. now I'm down to 1 cup every 3 days or so. Would you consider this normal? I'm running a Nuvo 38g system. (8 fish total) My biggest concern is that with the air valve at 100% I have very little 'control' over the skimming. Should I try raising or lowering the skimmer in the water? I have it set so that the water level is about 1/4" over the intake slots. Thanks
 
Mines only been running a few weeks now but skimming like crazy. Good dark, stinkin skimmate. I still have my air only partially open and the water level is about 2/3rd the way up the intake slots.

I guess you could check the airline to make sure its not kinked a bit somewhere. I would say a cup every third day is not to bad either. I dump mine every second day or so but can go 3 or even 4.
 
Mine has been running for about 2 weeks and the air is almost off with LOTS of foam and skimming action.

I did have to take mine apart and reposition the foam nozzle as it had come loose during shipping. Maybe yours has come loose so it's not producing enough foam?

Another thing I have noticed is that I am getting micro bubbles from the seams of the unit about half way down. Has anyone else seen bubbles leaking from the seams?

... Rob
 
Thanks for the responses guys! I decided to pull apart the skimmer to see what was going on inside. I appear to have found the problem as the air input hole to the pump was salted off quite a bit. Of course I'm now wondering if I'm going to need to pull this skimmer apart once a month and clean this intake port? If anybody else finds it salting off, please post. Any ideas?
 
To remove salt buildup with previous skimmers I used 2 methods:

Turn off the skimmer during feeding. This allows the water to desolve the salt daily.

Once a month, remove the silencer and put the air tube in a cup of almost boiling water. The skimmer will 'drink' the hot water and desolve the salt.

I havn't done the hot water one yet as I have only had it running for a few weeks.

Did you notice any bubbles escaping from the body seams?
 
Just the fine bubbles coming from the bottom of mine. I cleaned mine once already and never noticed any salt build up there, just the coraline starting on the acrylic. Its like a coraline magnet. :lol:

Both pumps on my 250 Reefpack are connected to my feed timer on my RK2, so they shut off during feeding mode for me also.
 
It is salting up even with the silencer behind the tank? I would try to reposition the silencer where it cannot take in so much salt laden moist air.
 
Thanks for the tips! Yeah the silencer is behind the tank and I don't believe there is much for 'salt laden' air as my wall isn't displaying any salt creep on it. I'll continue to monitor the situation. At first I thought this was the issue with my reduced 'foaminess' but it's not the case. So I still am experiencing a reduced skimmate production from when I started the unit up. I just realized though that I started a 9W UV sterilizer up on this system a bit ago and it may coincide with this reduced bubble production. So I'm now thinking the UV may have caused a slight change in my water chemistry and is effecting my skimmate production. I'm probably going to shut my UV off for a bit and see if things go back to normal. Not sure what else it could be..
 
Some types of algae can also have a high fat/oil content and that can also impede skimming.
 
Just thought I would update this thread again. I found another problem which is my refractometer drifted out of calibration so my salinity had dropped in my tank. (1.022) As I am increasing this back to normal range the skimmer is skimming better and better. I also sucked about an ounce of vinegar into the air hose and that also perked it right up. (must have ate out any remaining salt residue) Much happier now and my tank is looking better every day!
 
Any updates on these skimmers? Did anyone upgrade their Tunze 9002 to the 9004? If so, did you notice an increase in performance?
 
When it comes to tank compatibility, I just google search Tunze 9004 solana 34, I didn't find any definitive hits. For the most part we build our equipment to work in plain glass boxes so it has not been tried by us in the huge variety of all in one tanks on the market worldwide.
 
Hi Roger,

Can 9004 run in the sump? Water level is around 8-8.5"?

Please advice as I am keen to try this skimmer.

Thanks.
 
It needs to be submerged about 9-9.75" and the water level must be very constant, if you can attain this in your sump, it should work.
 
Psyire said:
Hello,

I've had my Tunze 9004 skimmer running on my tank for over a month now. At first I had the air cut back quite a bit or it would overfoam. This was during the later stages of my tank cycling and I had a bunch of green algae still. Now my algae has died off with my cycle ending and I've noticed that for the past week or two I've had to have my air valve almost 100% open or the skimmer wouldn't really skim much. For the first few weeks I was pulling out a whole cup of green mung every day.. now I'm down to 1 cup every 3 days or so. Would you consider this normal? I'm running a Nuvo 38g system. (8 fish total) My biggest concern is that with the air valve at 100% I have very little 'control' over the skimming. Should I try raising or lowering the skimmer in the water? I have it set so that the water level is about 1/4" over the intake slots. Thanks
Click to expand...
Do u have any bubbles in ur tank from the skimmer
 
Excellence product

Excellence product

Just got a 5 month old used 9004 for my 30g tank yesterday. I'm very happy with the performance and the foam is much better than my 9002.

Thumb up for excellence product by TUNZE that never fail me....:bounce3: !
 
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