Improved Skimming... Bubble Magus

[majorstare]

Never been fully happy with my Bubble Magus Curve 5 skimmer.
The collection cup just cloggs up and unless the water level in the neck is near the top, nothing collects in the cup.

I have a relatively small sump (20x20x12) in a compact cabin, humidity is quite high. Noticed the skimmer air silensor had water vapour inside, presumably from the humid air in the cabinet.

So, 12" of pipe attached to the top of the air silensor, through the cabinet wall to outside the tank (corner tank so pipe cannot be seen).
Now drawing in cooler, dry air.
Within 2 minutes the skimmer was producing bubbles to the top of the collection cup and "popping" over the sides.
Finally producing good skimate.

 

[helen ann]

Never been fully happy with my Bubble Magus Curve 5 skimmer.
The collection cup just cloggs up and unless the water level in the neck is near the top, nothing collects in the cup.

I have a relatively small sump (20x20x12) in a compact cabin, humidity is quite high. Noticed the skimmer air silensor had water vapour inside, presumably from the humid air in the cabinet.

So, 12" of pipe attached to the top of the air silensor, through the cabinet wall to outside the tank (corner tank so pipe cannot be seen).
Now drawing in cooler, dry air.
Within 2 minutes the skimmer was producing bubbles to the top of the collection cup and "popping" over the sides.
Finally producing good skimate.

Nice! This is the skimmer I have for my new tank!

 

[skim]

Well hate to say it but what it most likely did was dropped the air intake level. For water to be in the Silencer if you did not put it there would have to come from the pump squirting small amounts back up the tube, and that could be from what I see your water level in the body is way too high, level should never pass the where the cup joins the body. I would be more then happy to help you get this sorted out, but will require more info on your system, How old, roughly how many Fish and inverts ( Bio Load ) how long the skimmer has been running in your system and some work on your part. Your skimmer is not running properly right now, I can tell you that just from the photo and I would hate to see you dump the skimmer because you are not finding to be working as it should. Let me know mate.
Cheers and Beers.

 

[majorstare]

Well hate to say it but what it most likely did was dropped the air intake level. For water to be in the Silencer if you did not put it there would have to come from the pump squirting small amounts back up the tube, and that could be from what I see your water level in the body is way too high, level should never pass the where the cup joins the body. I would be more then happy to help you get this sorted out, but will require more info on your system, How old, roughly how many Fish and inverts ( Bio Load ) how long the skimmer has been running in your system and some work on your part. Your skimmer is not running properly right now, I can tell you that just from the photo and I would hate to see you dump the skimmer because you are not finding to be working as it should. Let me know mate.
Cheers and Beers.

Interesting and thank you for your comments.
System is a 2x2x2 cube, approx. 200ltrs
Sump is 20"x20"x12".
Running Zeovit
90% SPS
7x fish.. two small Clowns, Bi-colour Benny, Starkey Damsel, Possum Wrasse, Purple Fire Fish, Fishers Angel.
10x hermit crabs, 2x Halloween crabs, 6x snails.
Kh, Mag, Cal - all in check
NO3 - 0
Po4 - 0.025

Tank is about 2yrs old and the sump was added a year ago with the BM Curve 5 skimmer.
Sump turn over is approx. 500ltrs/hr.
Skimmer sits in the first sump compartment, with a water level of 9.5"

Think that covers everything, interested to hear your comments.

 

[SamsReef]

The water level goes higher when the air intake is clogged for some reason. This could be because your the tubing is clogged (I have taken small snails out in the past) or the hole right on the pump intake (where the air is mixed with water) might be clogged. This happens especially if you are runners my high ph. Calcium deposition...bottom line, just check if air flow has any kind of clog...I doubt as as skim that this is because of moisture as your problem is evident from the picture.

Sam

 

[skim]

Hi majorstare, I know you may not like it but I believe you should remove the skimmer and clean the pump and venturi and tube and give the Silencer a flush with fresh water. When you are reassembling things make sure that the solid small area on bubble plate is over the pump return, then make sure that you have pretty much the same spacing from the bubble plate to simmer body all around. Now before you restart the skimmer open flute all the way so water is at its lowest point in skimmer and plug it in and let it run like this for about a hour. The bubbles should not come out of skimmer but you should get a snow white looking mass of bubbles in the skimmer body. After about an hour move the water level up so it is about 1 inch below the cup line and leave for about another hour. Now bring the water level up to the top of the body without water going over the edge, just so bubbles are bursting, add the cup and you should be good to go for now. You will most likely have to make some fine tuning but wait at least a day. WHEN MAKING ANY OF THE WATER LEVEL ADJUSTMENTS, DON'T FEED OR PUT HANDS IN WATER 2 HOURS PRIOR! as this will greatly affect your out come. When you do any fine tuning it should small adjustments and should wait about an hour before checking results. Your skimmer will not foam all the time sometimes it may go dormant and just bubble away at the rim level. Many things affect foam production from feeding to hands in the water to something a Coral may have released to just a low Organic level at that time, running Carbon will affect foam production, Filter Socks will affect foam production. You said you run Zeovit so you more then likely have a low Nutrients which will also affect foam production as its just not there for the Skimmer to remove and believe it or not that Curve 5 is Skimming the hell out of that 50 gal system.
Now for the other thing. You said 9.5 inches of water, I know they say 9.5 to 11 but I myself and many others have find it does best in 8 - 8.5 inches. I run a Curve 9. Now as for water level in sump see how you make out with the above first and if you still are having so issues try lowering the sump water level, you will have to readjust skimmer if you do.
Just another note I missed is when you fine tune you want to get like pea size bubbles in the small neck area on the cup side ( where the cup joins skimmer body and bottom of cup there is a small neck area ) and from there the bubbles should be larger and bursting.

I hope this will or is of some help, and good luck.

 

[jenreefer]

Hi majorstare, I know you may not like it but I believe you should remove the skimmer and clean the pump and venturi and tube and give the Silencer a flush with fresh water. When you are reassembling things make sure that the solid small area on bubble plate is over the pump return, then make sure that you have pretty much the same spacing from the bubble plate to simmer body all around. Now before you restart the skimmer open flute all the way so water is at its lowest point in skimmer and plug it in and let it run like this for about a hour. The bubbles should not come out of skimmer but you should get a snow white looking mass of bubbles in the skimmer body. After about an hour move the water level up so it is about 1 inch below the cup line and leave for about another hour. Now bring the water level up to the top of the body without water going over the edge, just so bubbles are bursting, add the cup and you should be good to go for now. You will most likely have to make some fine tuning but wait at least a day. WHEN MAKING ANY OF THE WATER LEVEL ADJUSTMENTS, DON'T FEED OR PUT HANDS IN WATER 2 HOURS PRIOR! as this will greatly affect your out come. When you do any fine tuning it should small adjustments and should wait about an hour before checking results. Your skimmer will not foam all the time sometimes it may go dormant and just bubble away at the rim level. Many things affect foam production from feeding to hands in the water to something a Coral may have released to just a low Organic level at that time, running Carbon will affect foam production, Filter Socks will affect foam production. You said you run Zeovit so you more then likely have a low Nutrients which will also affect foam production as its just not there for the Skimmer to remove and believe it or not that Curve 5 is Skimming the hell out of that 50 gal system.
Now for the other thing. You said 9.5 inches of water, I know they say 9.5 to 11 but I myself and many others have find it does best in 8 - 8.5 inches. I run a Curve 9. Now as for water level in sump see how you make out with the above first and if you still are having so issues try lowering the sump water level, you will have to readjust skimmer if you do.
Just another note I missed is when you fine tune you want to get like pea size bubbles in the small neck area on the cup side ( where the cup joins skimmer body and bottom of cup there is a small neck area ) and from there the bubbles should be larger and bursting.

I hope this will or is of some help, and good luck.

Very well said. +1