skimmer going crazy??

[Anthony.Luciano710]

i have a small amount of Coraline algae on a couple of rocks but i thought that theres like hundreds of critters that live in the rock and can only get there by seeding it with rock from the ocean. i bought a bottle of copepods to seed the tank so i can get a head start with that.

Base rock becomes live rock without adding anything additional to it, you usually seed the tank with some live rock to kick start the cycle by introducing nitrifying bacteria the tank didn't have. Live rock = Home for nitrifying bacteria. If your tank is cycled you don't have to add anything unless you want coralline algae which usually has to be brought into the tank if your existing LR doesn't have any.

 

[batt600]

All you needed to seed it was buy a few pieces of curied live rock and put it in the tank . The pods might die

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

ok it worked for like 1 day and started being retarded again for no reason. heres a video of it. just click it and it will bring you to the vid. and as you can see its only 7 inches submerged and its allowed to be from 6-10 as it says on the directions and the outlet is clearly out of the water so i dont know whats going on and its annoying me so i think im going to contact coral value or something.

 

[InfernoST]

How much water is it sitting in? It looks to be in too much water, but then again I'm comparing it to my cone and they are two different animals. Did you also try taking the PVC fitting off of the output of the gate valve, it is reducing the size of the output probably causing too much back pressure and not allowing the water to leave the skimmer body fast enough.

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

It's only 7 inches.

How much water is it sitting in? It looks to be in too much water, but then again I'm comparing it to my cone and they are two different animals. Did you also try taking the PVC fitting off of the output of the gate valve, it is reducing the size of the output probably causing too much back pressure and not allowing the water to leave the skimmer body fast enough.

 

[InfernoST]

It looks like more. you could try 6 inches that is what my cone is sitting in and did you try taking the coupling off of the gate valve output?

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

it used to be like 8-9 inches in the old sump but ill try raising it more.and ill also try taking off the coupling too.

It looks like more. you could try 6 inches that is what my cone is sitting in and did you try taking the coupling off of the gate valve output?

 

[masterswimmer]

It looks like more. you could try 6 inches that is what my cone is sitting in and did you try taking the coupling off of the gate valve output?

+1
I agree with Keith

Russ

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

ok i raised it up so its about 5 1/2 to 6" submerged. i used an old fluval 404 and just put it under the skimmer base then used acrylic to level it out. it seems to be working now but not making foam yet just bubbles and i only have about a half inch clearance from the top now. so i guess i will have to empty the cup from that little plug port or something now.

 

[InfernoST]

AJ, How is the skimmer doing now?

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

So far so good. It started making foam but it overflows a couple of times but I got it to stay now and I'll go check if the level stayed steady overnight when I get home from work.

AJ, How is the skimmer doing now?

 

[NYreefNoob]

quit making so many adjustments to it, dial it down and leave for a couple of days then make slight adjustments to it each day will a small turn of the know, and of course if it is overflowing what ever is in it is dumping back into the sump and making it go crazy. how many baffles are in the sump ?

 

[InfernoST]

quit making so many adjustments to it, dial it down and leave for a couple of days then make slight adjustments to it each day will a small turn of the know, and of course if it is overflowing what ever is in it is dumping back into the sump and making it go crazy. How many baffles are in the sump ?

+1

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

the first baffle for the skimmer then the second baffle on the other side for a fuge then a baffle coming down for a bubble trap and another baffle coming up to push any bubbles that went under the bubble trap back to the top. so 4 baffles.

quit making so many adjustments to it, dial it down and leave for a couple of days then make slight adjustments to it each day will a small turn of the know, and of course if it is overflowing what ever is in it is dumping back into the sump and making it go crazy. how many baffles are in the sump ?

 

[NYreefNoob]

it just doesnt look like the first baffle next to skimmer is setting the watr level stable, also id pull the skimmer and clean it, you have alot of dust and crap on the pump and body,and the more you stick your hands in the tank the longer is takes to settle to dial personally when i clean my sump i turn system off like doing a wc, then i stick one pump in sump to blow the debris up and another pump with hose feeding into a filter sock so all the water from the sump is getting disturbed and filtered through the sock, easy way for me to clean sump

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

well on the first baffle the water level doesnt change at all i sat there for like 10 minutes just staring at it. and i pulled it out and sprayed it with a hose and cleaned as much as it could now it just started making foam and it was pulling skim-mate and then i touched the water and it overflowed and wouldn't stop even with the valve wide open. could it be that its not on a flat surface and tilts a little bit to one side and rocks back a forth? its very minor moving so i didn't think that would be effecting it.

it just doesnt look like the first baffle next to skimmer is setting the watr level stable, also id pull the skimmer and clean it, you have alot of dust and crap on the pump and body,and the more you stick your hands in the tank the longer is takes to settle to dial personally when i clean my sump i turn system off like doing a wc, then i stick one pump in sump to blow the debris up and another pump with hose feeding into a filter sock so all the water from the sump is getting disturbed and filtered through the sock, easy way for me to clean sump

 

[NYreefNoob]

and the more you stick your hands in the tank the longer is takes to settle to dial

it just started making foam and it was pulling skim-mate and then i touched the water and it overflowed

:letitallo did you read what i typed

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

yea but not like put my arm in the water. i dipped my finger in to feel how hot it was and all the sudden i start to see it overflow like crazy. it was ridiculous because i barley did anything and it does this thing. its worse then my old odyssey skimmer.

:letitallo did you read what i typed

 

[NYreefNoob]

you probably have it to close anyways, dial it down a little and leave alone for a few days,

 

[Anthony.Luciano710]

i figured it out! i dont think i ever mentioned that it is also extremely loud so today i took it apart like 3 times and found nothing wrong inside the pump so i just got pissed off and took it apart again and found out that the impelled part that tip where it rests inside the shaft is cracked a half of it s gone. im not talking about the magnet im talking about the very tip of the pin where it rests so it was acting like a weight and like rattling the pump.