Life rock causing skimmer to overflow

[dlish89]

I am setting up a red sea 170. I bought it used and it came with a red octopus 110 int classic. I had it set up for almost a week and it was working great. Then I added the caribsea life rock tree and the skimmer is overflowing like mad and I cant slow it down. I opened the drain valve all the way and even lifter the skimmer up till it was almost out of the water. No difference. The water level is low but the bubbles are just crazy. I did a 20% water change no difference. Any suggestions?

 

[brmreefer]

Let it skim out whatever is causing the skimmer to go crazy. Replenish with new saltwater and it should eventually go back to normal. This would basically be doing a water change, but somewhat indirectly.

 

[dlish89]

It is just pouring out. If I leave it on it would drain the tank. I had it on with the plug out of the cup and it was barely able to keep up. The water in the skimmer is less than half way down in the skimmer but the bubbles are acting like a shook up soda and then you open the can.

 

[brmreefer]

At that point, I would look at doing heavy water changes to help remove whatever is causing the issue, then try turning on the skimmer again to see if that helps. This may have to be repeated a couple times.

 

[dlish89]

brmreefer thank you for the tips. As I was responding to your last post I had an idea. I turned the skimmer back on and plugged the silencers. The skimmer did not over flow. So then I slowly added just a tiny bit of air till I started to get some skimming. I will let it run like this and see how it goes. Hopefully this will allow it to skim off whatever is causing the problem. If no change in a day or so I will get on with massive water changes. I have no livestock yet thankfully so big water changes wont be an issue. Thanks I will update if anything changes. Just wonder if others have seen this type of activity in their skimmer with the life rock

 

[haitian_reefer]

When this happens to me, I turn off my skimmer. I turn it back on after a few normal water changes.

 

[dlish89]

So here is an update. It is now 1 week after first adding the life rock. Everything is back to normal YAY!. Here is the breakdown. I had the skimmer off for about 4 days and did a 20% water change. Skimmer still going nuts. I totally blocked off the air to the skimmer, but it still had a few bubbles in the skimmer. This allowed it to skim off some of whatever was driving it nuts. I slowly increased the air to the skimmer over a couple days and now we are back in business.