Vertex Skimmer club

OK what am I doing wrong! I posted a while ago that my new IN 250 on a new tank was overflowing with the wedge pipe wide open. I was told to let it run wide open for a week and it would settle down. Well now my tank is a month old and the skimmer is still in the same spot, overflowing with wedge pipe wide open. Any ideas?
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Funny I thought it looked fairly shallow in your sump!! Oh well, I believe the recommended depth is 6 to 9 inches of water, either way a little change could make a big difference. If you are a little under this try raising the water level and see what happens.
 
What happens if you remove airline from silencer? Are you putting in any additives?

I don"t know if the pipes are different but is the pipe installed between skimmer outlet elbow and the tee-- the shorter of the 2 pipes? ( exclude short nipple)
(Is tee at shortest height ?)

What happens if you remove wedge valve from tee? ( should be same level as wide open)
 
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I think Charlie is right, the tee (outlet)seems a little too high. Check all thepipe and use the shorter one to lower the outlet.

Noel
 
Thanks guys for all the quick answers.

Water level is at 7"
I checked the pipes and they are the same length.
I have taken the wedge pipe off and no change.
I took the air line out of the fitting in the wedge pipe just now and the bubble column droped all the way down to the beginning of the neck, so this was the problem I'm hoping.
I am assumming this means something is in the fitting stopping the air flow so I will take it out and check it. Thanks again.
 
Can anyone post a video of their skimmer running? All the pictures I see of other skimmers show the neck filled with very small bubbles, but mine has huge bubbles mixed in with the fine ones. I'll try to take a video to show you what I mean.
 
Bobby, if anything your water level in the sump looks low... but I don't think that is the problem. I'd try a couple things.

Remove the wedge pipe - is the water/foam level still high?
if yes then it's the pump.
if no then the wedge pipe is seating incorrectly or there is an obstruction.

Remove the airline from the small gray elbow fitting on the riser pipe.
if the level goes down you have a restriction in the fitting.
if no change, move on to the pump.

Pull the air venturi fittling off the front of the pump. Remove the airline and look to see there is nothing blocking the inlet. Any debris will restrict the air and allow the pump to push too much water into the skimmer.

Pull the pump out and remove the volute (front cover). Make sure you don't lose the black plastic washer that goes between the impeller and rubber bushing. See anything stuck in the needle wheel? Now pull out the impeller - you may need some needlenose pliers to pull it out. Is the ceramic shaft cracked? Look to make sure there is another black washer at the bottom of the shaft, though sometimes it sticks to the bottom of the impeller. Reassemble and try it all again.

I have the IN-250 and the only thing that makes it overflow is if I restrict the airline or have the wedge pipe more than 2/3 closed when I restart.

One more thing to check. This happened on an older Octopus skimmer I had with a similar wedge pipe. Make sure the "Open" marker is actually where the wedge is open. That old skimmer had that Open mark on the closed side so instead of open the wedge was blocking/closing the flow.

I'm probably over-explaining this but hopefully one of these things will narrow down the problem.
 
Ken, my 180 is pushed to the very limit with this pump, so I think a 250 will be fine with it.. I went from 7/8 closed, to 7/8 open on the wedge valve.. its a good thing this pump is stable..
( I do understand, wanting the most power though)
I have a new 10-100 scfh meter on fedx truck :)
 
Ken, Pump noise is 1/3 of what it was yesterday. ( I was a bit concerned) My askoll was quiet from day1, but these bubblblasters do have fancy new shalf and bearings..
 
Good to know, I won't push the panic button if it's noisy at first.

Where did you order your Dwyer 10-100 from?

The new pump arrives tomorrow, woohoo!
 
Here's the video of my IN-80. You can see the huge bubbles pretty clearly. Tonight, I took it all apart and cleaned it, made sure all the fittings were seated snugly and that there was nothing blocking the airline. After I got it all back together, the pump was (thankfully) quieter, but there are still the huge bubbles. There is plenty of foam, but it never seems to build a head. Could it be that my water just isn't that dirty? I have only two clowns and a ton of chaeto. What do you guys think I should do?

 
OneReef - Cool! Mine was skimming quickly as well, just like yours. But that's probably because of a couple of reasons: bought my 200 used from PA and because I ran skimmerless for months before setting one up again. Did you go skimmerless, too or did you just replace an old skimmer w/ a new one?
 
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