Help! About to flood my living room...

[sanlynn]

Hi all,
Well, our new tank (150 gal) was set-up on Saturday. Today (Monday) the protein skimmer (ETSS Reef Devil Deluxe) is producing such large quantities of water that we have to pour off about a gallon of liquid every hour. The Foam Condenser Tube on the skimmer shows ONLY white foam, by the way, but when it bubbles over the top, quantities of water are poured off into the waste drain and then into a remote container. And the naturally, with so much water being drained, the water level in the sump is getting dangerously low each hour, so we keep topping the tank too.

We tried adjusting the gate valve, but instructions say to wait a few hours after each adjustment and between my husband and me adjusting the thing, I don't know that we aren't back to where we started...the LFS where we purchased everything is closed now.

At least we don't have much livestock (the LFS gave us a featherduster to throw in yesterday, I'm not sure why, our nitrite levels are between 0.2 and 0.5) just 150 lb of LR. Still, can anyone tell us how to avoid having to stay up all night, emptying the canister and topping off the tank? Besides shutting down the whole system, that is. Please?

 

[Anonymous]

Turn the skimmer off and go to bed. Try again tomorrow. :wink:

New skimmers can be a pain to break in sometimes. I would open the gate valve up an lower the water level quite a bit. Let it run for a couple of days then slowly start making adjustments.

Double check your salanity too. With all that freshwater you've been adding, you make have inadvertantely lower you SG.

Louey

 

[sanlynn]

Sorry to say, we don't know how to shut off the skimmer without turning off everything. We don't have separate powerheads to provide oxygen in the water, if we turn off the skimmer will we have more LR die-off? (and will our lonely featherduster have a chance?)

I have to say we're feeling pretty stupid about this. We HAVE read lots of material, really, including the beginners guide on reefs.org and several books and magazines...it just seems very complicated to me right now

Interesting point about the salinity - the LFS said we wouldn't need the measure for this yet so we don't have a way to measure it. Nor any additional salt to adjust it anyway. Guess I'll be back there tomorrow...

Many thanks, Sandy

 

[Anonymous]

First off, I would start dumping the water in the remote container back into the tank....you want to keep the salinity constant. Do that instead of adding tap water.

I'm a little confused by your setup...how does the water get from your sump back into the main tank? In any case, turn the gate valve to one extreme, wait, and if the problem hasn't stopped, then push it to the other extreme. One should stop the water from gushing into the collection cup.

Finally, don't get down...many of us went through this when we first started!

 

[cdeakle]

Im terribly confused?!?! A few questions:

1) You have a tank up and running yet no hydrometer or refractometer?
2) You don't know how your tank is plumbed and setup? Don't know how to turn off the skimmer?
3) The only powerhead you have in your tank is attached to your skimmer?

Im not trying to be mean by any means, these are just questions that should be on the front of your mind. In this hobby we are all noobs in one way or another.

Interesting point about the salinity - the LFS said we wouldn't need the measure for this yet so we don't have a way to measure it. Nor any additional salt to adjust it anyway. Guess I'll be back there tomorrow...

8O 8O 8O

 

[Pioneer]

sanlynn, I hope you got things under control. We all had problems when we started,heck we still do. When you first start a tank the skimmer is hard to adjust. Try and adjust the skimmer way down to make less.You could just unplug skimmer as long as you have a main pump on your system moving water. Let us know how your doing!

 

[sanlynn]

Thank you all for your advice. We think we have avoided the skimmer overflowing by continuing to experiment with the valve. At least, I hope we don't wake up to a wet floor :wink:

We really, really appreciate your help.
Sandy

 

[Baianotang]

Keep the questions coming...

 

[Baianotang]

Keep the questions coming...

 

[SnowManSnow]

Hope things look up for you. Dont give up!

 

[cdeakle]

Any other questions? Fire away. How is your tank plumbed? Get extra salt? How much circulation do you have?

 

[sanlynn]

Hi all,
Thanks for not only answers, but for the encouragement to keep at this.

We think we're on track with our skimmer now - it's turned almost all the way on (one more counterclockwise quarter turn and we've reached the limit) and the tube is full of white foam, but only a trickle of water is coming into the disposal container.

Turns out the floating thermometer we have is also a hydrometer - though it's difficult to read, I think the salinity is still okay - but since our tank is running at 82 degrees and the thermometer seems to be calibrated for 75, I haven't yet found the formula to figure it out. I'm still looking through our books.

Our heater is an Acura 1000, 300 watts. I thought it would be underpowered for our 150 gallon tank, but though it's set at 74, the tank still reads 82. It may be malfunctioning and I'm going to unplug it to see if over the next several hours the temperature modifies, or if the other equipment is just throwing off that much heat. The LFS said to just bring it in and they will give us a replacement in any case.

The LR is throwing off alot of debris, including this larvae like thing that is now on the sand. It's hard to tell, but it looks like some creature is trying to break out of it (nudibranch? worm?) or maybe it's my imagination and it's just moving with the water currents. Anyone know what's the best reference book to identify all the interesting things growing on and around the LR? I took a flashlight around 2 a.m. (moonlights only on) to see if I'd see some creepy crawlies and didn't see anything I could identify. There are some spots that look like dewdrops hanging off the bottom of the rocks. Trapped air bubbles? Anyone know? I have looked at the forum questions on this, but so far no luck.

We have no powerheads, just two returns - one from the sump (1") and one going through the 40 watt UV (3/4"). I don't know about possible dead spots, but right now there is alot of water movement and the sand has drifted into interesting patterns. Our goal is soft corals and compatible fish, so I'm not sure how much water current will be needed just yet.

The owner of our LFS has DEFINITE ideas of how things should be done, and some of what we've done doesn't exactly agree with the models in the some of the books we've read. Still, he's got his name (Louis Mauro) on some patents in the industry and has worked along with some respected names in development. Frankly, there's so much conflicting info on some things, we felt we just had to jump in somewhere...

Thanks, again,
Sandy

 

[cdeakle]

In my 5 years in the hobby or so I can say without a doubt that reefs.org has been my most vauluabe resource and help. Without RDO I would have been up a creek. :wink:

When you first hear anything new, especially from local stores/suppliers, I would always relay that info here for verification.