4am overflow.

[Ayzel1]

Happy Thursday!! My daughter woke me up early this morning to tell me there was water around my 30g cube. My skimmer was overflowing and spilling water over the side of the sump. Jumped into action mopped the water up and added a bag of carbon to my floss cup. Did an unschedule water change. I don’t know why the skimmer overflowed, did a tank feeding yesterday evening, and was watching “Cobra Kai” for another 2 hrs after feeding. It is obvious that I will need to add a float switch to the skimmer and connect it to my Apex Classic through a break out box or if you gals or guys have on another method I can use. TIA!!
PD: if anyone has a break out box locally, please message me.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

When I get lazy and not empty the skimmer cup it gets to the point that it spills back into the tank, and it snowballs from there. Once the skimmate makes it back into the water the skimmer goes crazy and dilutes more of the skimmate and eventually all the collected skimmate makes its way back into the water.

I tried the float switch and because of how the skimmate eventually collects and dries around the float, it eventually gets stuck. The best fix for skimmate is the pressure switches [off the top of my head] like the ones avast sells. They never touch liquid and uses trapped rising air pressure to close a circuit.

If you have the space, a skimmate locker would be the best fix, as it allows for easy skimmate removal and usually comes equipped with a pressure switch already installed.

 

[LRT]

Did you recently change anything else up?
Are you dosing carbon?
I started dosing carbon the other day and sure enough my skimmers went crazy overnight and did the same thing.
Back to normal now but its been a long time since I've gotten my skimmers tuned in but it did freak me out. Luckily none flooded over onto the floor.
On the flip side I have gotten my Nitrates down from 15-20 to 10-15 last few days.
Hoping my hair algae will start going away now that I got ph stable along with it!

 

[Ayzel1]

@Sisterlimonpot no room, @KPHAM has one of them Avast lockers and would love to get it, BUT no space.
@LRT i did not change anything, like I said all I did was feed the tanks. I am keeping an eye out for anything weird.