Why is my skimmer freaking out?

[Randrew215]

I just walked in to my reef octopus freaking out and overflowing the collection cup. A half hour ago it was totally normal w/ about an inch of gross skimmate I was getting ready to empty. I dosed b-ionic and fed the fish, and then I put epoxy putty over brown button polyps I'm trying to eliminate and removed some GSP from a rock (tearing a couple pieces of it in the process. I went down in the basement to grab the bucket of salt and put some tunes on and realized that the house was stinking of overflown skimmate. I essentially never have to adjust the skimmer- it runs very consistently. Now I had to dial it way back and it's still pouring some microbubbles out into the display tank and all corals retracted. I'm running new carbon and am going to go ahead with the water change, but I just want to understand if it's my messing with the epoxy and GSP that made the skimmer tweak out like that or if it was something unconnected (like maybe kalk buildup in the skimmer pump or something). I'm sure this is a simple question for the more knowledgeable. Thanks.
-Andy

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

and then I put epoxy putty over brown button polyps

This is my guess. Next time you use the epoxy putty, turn the skimmer off for a day, or set it really really high (so it keeps aerating the water but doesn't collect anything).

 

[Randrew215]

Okay, thank you. Tank went back to normal and corals came back out, so besides dumping a couple days worth of skimmate back in the system, no harm no foul. I'll skim wet for the next few days just to be safe.

 

[tmz]

I agree. Likely the epoxy. I've had it happen. Seems to happen more with the coraline colored epoxy. Which did you use?

 

[naprestsleep]

Ive had the epoxy due it and sometimes my Reef octopus skimmer will overflow for no reason. Once I power it off and back and then clean the cup on it goes back to normal.

 

[Randrew215]

I used the white. Skimmer seems to be running well again.