Tunze 9010 tweaking

[Lt. Hotpants]

Having a little trouble dialing in my tunze 9010, i have the foam extractor unit and it seems as though the damned hole (where the foam exits through the ruffled tube) is just too high.

The skimmer is producing decent foam, but it doesn't quite have the push to go through the hole and down the extraction spout (in any appreciable quantity anyway.) Is there any way to increase the water level inside the reaction chamber so that the bubbles are made higher and can exit through the tube? Right now i'm getting thick black skimmate stuck on the inside of the extractor near the top. The skimmer is submerged almost entirely (a cm past the water level line perhaps) so i can't lower it further into the water any more.

I wouldn't mind wet skimming either.

Any ideas?

 

[Aquadepot]

Lt. Hotpants,

I have several of the foam extractors running and find keeping them clean will increase performance. Skimmer performance is effected by a lot of things so it is often hard to get consistant wet foam from different aquariums.
Thick black skimmate may not be a bad thing.

Best Regards
Graeme

 

[rvitko]

I think it is submerged to deep, when submerged past the water line it tends to suck in water and air through the venturi and greatly reduce the air flow, usually you can hear a slurping or percolating sound indicating this is happening.

 

[Lt. Hotpants]

what i ended up doing was i stuck airline tubing through the screw hole and into the larger airline tubing on the inside of the skimmer, so it's making a 90 degree turn inside the screw hole (making an airtight tube that goes from outside air to pump- and yes, it was a ***** to thread the tube through there).

I then dropped the skimmer another half inch to the point where everything is submerged except for the clear reaction champer.

I also plugged the additional outlet hole (that looks like the hole the screw used to go in- but on the opposite side).

now finally the skimmer is working as i had expected it to. I am far from impressed that this amount of modding was necessary, especially from tunze.