working a skimmer

[supertech99]

hey all,
This is my first experience with a skimmer and I am having trouble adjusting it to get it to work properly. I was able to make some foam overnight (it was white) but it was dumping tons of microbubbles into the tank and my fish were all freaked out by it and hunkered down in the rock caves. It basically saturated half of my 55gal with bubbles. So I adjusted the air valve to minimize bubbles in the tank but no real foam is being made. It is running this way for the time being as not to freak out the fish. It is a seaclone 150 wit a maxijet1200. Are microbubbles just what you get with a skimmer? Is the foam always brown or can it be white?

 

[fallinapart]

the color of the foam does not matter, but microbubbles with the seaclone is hard to overcome. I would suggest you completely shut off the air hose and let all the air get out of the skimmer, then just turn on the air until bubbles in the seaclone are just at the bottom of the collection cup. You will have to adjust this several times over several hours to get that accomplished, as the seaclone is very hard to dial in, just be patient and do it gradually, and then you will start to get some skimmate. I hope that made sense.

Norman

 

[ai-reefer]

Seaclone are crappy skimmers, i returned mine and got aqua c remora w/maxijet 1200...no adjustments needed

i just placed a fine foam piece on the exit to deal with the microbubbles..it takes out 80% of the bubbles

if u want to keep the skimmer...google "Seacole mods"

good luck

p.s.

skimmate should be dark in color, not clear

 

[supertech99]

well now i have it adjusted for "minimal" micro bubbles in the tank and a bit of froth on top but foam is still not climbing to the collection cup. suppositly anything that adds to the slime coat is supposed to increase the skimmer production, i have a bunch of prime in the tank but no skimmate. so do i need to wait the breakin period? is this a real thing?

 

[sandalscout]

The Seaclone is an ancient design in the way of skimmers, and while it often seems that they get horrible reviews, I have seen (at least a few) people have reasonable success with them. With just about any skimmer, they do need to break-in. I believe that slime-coat additives actually either make skimmers go NUTS (way too much foam, overflowing) or they kill bubble production, one of the two.

 

[DMBillies]

It will need to break in if it is brand new... for sure.

A lot of things can make skimmers produce more or less skimmate. One thing I know makes skimmers go nuts is aquamend.

I'd keep your skimmer running on the "low bubble"' set-up for a few days before you mess around too much. I have no experience with seaclones, but most skimmers can be quite fickle (which is why you often pay for what you get here, even though they all seem pretty simple).

Depending on the micro-bubble output, how the skimmer breaks in, and how your sump is designed, you might also have to consider ways to prevent bubbles from getting to your return. Just about every skimmer I've had (red sea prizm, coralife ss 65, asm g1x, asm g3, euro-reef es-8-1, MRC MR-2) has produced some bubbles and I've always had to make some provisions for getting rid of microbubbles before they get back to return.

 

[ai-reefer]

I saw some great mods for the Seaclone but i was just too lazy

to do them.

In my case it usually takes a couple of weeks to produce some

dark simmate but when i got my skimmer, i ran it in a bucket of

hot water for 3 days. I refilled it was hot water everytime i got a

chance. It has a lot of oils and chemicals from the manufacturing

process..so it takes a while for them to dissolve + i didn't want

that stuff in my tank and it started producing skimmate right

away. If your have superlow bio load it might take a while to

produce anything.

 

[supertech99]

I have skimmate! I think ai-reefer was right about the chemicals in the collum it seemed to take about 48 hours for the foam to start climbing the walls well. I also read some mods but did not want to start cutting my new skimmer (even if wayne hooked me up with a great price on it) so I did the only one that did not require cutting. I found a venterni (sp) valve that I had recieved with my powerheads. It was much easyier to adjust and seems more accurate and airtight. Anyway I adjusted it and waited about an hour and not only did the foam start to climb but the bubbles in the tank were greatly reduced. I surmised that better foam production reduced microbubbles. At first the foam smelled like some sort of plastic chemical, but now its greenishbrown and smells like...well you all know what it smells like...uggggh!
thanks for all the suggestions

 

[waynesworld]

one other thing about skimmers is when you put your hand in the tank it may stop skimming for a little while