Tiny bubbles : Via Aqua skimmer : Frustrated

[SaltyMist]

Okay I replaced my Lee's protein skimmer with a Via Aqua skimmer, yes I would have liked to get the aqua c remora, but nobody in my area has it, and I dont like to buy online.

Anyway, the tank is now filled with microbubbles and they keep coming out, Im not sure why this is happening, perhaps there is a leak in the skimmer thats allowing the bubbles to bypass the skimmer tube a littlebit but I dont see it.

Anyone with a Via Aqua skimmer know how to solve this? Or will it eventually just stop on its own?

Thanks

 

[SaltyMist]

Woops , guess I should have read the manuals common prolbems and solutions area.

Apparently this thing needs the filter pad to be in place. I dont know why that would be other than perhaps it's the way they designed it so that the consumer must by new filter pads every 3 or 4 weeks, but putting in the filter pad took care of the bubbles for the most part. They are slowly decreasing in numbers.

 

[Len]

Also note that new skimmers emit A LOT of microbubbles in the beginning. Once they break in, the problem with greatly diminish.

 

[SaltyMist]

Well, it's taken quite a bit of tweaking and small engineering, but I think it's finally where it needs to be.

I tried to hook up a surface skimmer to it, but the bubbles in the skimmer just werent were they should be. Put back on the original skimmers straignt down intake strainer and still nothing.

Finally I put a down U shapped tube (at the end of the intake pipe) with a strainer on the right side of the U. And WALA! Skimming nicely now and the only microbubbles are from my cascade 100 filter because I cleaned it out and changed over to a spraybar which makes some really nice flow by the way.

I dont know why the U shaped tube did anything (Im not an engineer or an aquatics expert), but it did help.

Hers a photo of it. You can see the downpip intake, then this strainer which is actually on a U shaped pipe, so the intake pipe goes down, then makes a U back up towards the surface to a small skimmer. Again I dont know why this increased the efficiency of the skimmer but it seem that it did.

 

[SaltyMist]

Oh yeah, please excuse the brown algae, it just appeared over the past couple days since I increased the wattage of the lights from 15w to 80w.

15w lighting might explain why I never had a brown algae diatom bloom but it appears that its here now.