New to Salt water

[Clark16]

hello everyone just wanted to say that im brand new to salt water and i love it already. I have a 40 gal hex tank and i have 3 big beautiful pieces of live rock in my display tank. With a custom made refugium filtration system full of live rock frags. I dont have any fish right now cause i want to get everything perfect. I also got a protein skimmer just to see how it worked and i hooked it up last night and it worked beautifully it was foaming up and working how it should. Today i went to unplug it and i noticed that it has stopped foaming and is still making bubbles but nothing like yesterday anyone know what happened or have any suggestions?

 

[MurseBS]

Welcome to R2R and welcome to your new addiction lol

 

[Clark16]

lol thanks and yeah it is an addiction already and i dont even have any fish or coral or anything!

 

[Saltgator]

Welcome to R2R. Sounds like your off to a good start. The skimmer may be reacting to something within the water causing it to foam crazy or just part of the break in. Being that you just turned the skimmer on last night, I would try to adjust the air intake and see if this changes anything. Usually it takes a few attempts to dial in a skimmer imo, but well worth it. Good luck.

 

[Clark16]

Thanks for the advice and i have dialed it in and messed with it for like an hour tonight. Maybe there is nothing in the water to make it foam since its just the water and the rocks? Or maybe I broke it somehow?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Welcome to the addiction my friend and welcome to R2R!!!

 

[bige]

Welcome! Hex-es can be tricky. Just get your power heads right so you can keep flow right and not create a whirlpool. Good luck. Take your time.

 

[Clark16]

how should i direct my power head? i have the rocks set up to block it a little bit from creating a whirlpool but i still seeing the sand moving along the bottom of the whole tank

 

[skinz78]

Welcome to R2R!

I agree that it sounds like your skimmer is just in the break in stage. I would just let it run without changing anything for a week. Let it calm down or it will seem like you are just chasing your tail...

Can you post a pic of your tank so we can see how you have it scaped and how you have your powerheads placed?

 

[Clark16]

sure ill take a pic right now

 

[Clark16]

well i just took some pics of the tank set and everything but it wont let me upload them any suggestions or am i doing something wrong?

 

[skinz78]

Hmm are you getting some kind of message when trying to upload?

Have you tried out Photobucket?

 

[RonMidtownStomp]

I am of the opinion that skimmer "break-in" is overrated and that initially there was stuff in the water to skim and now there's not.

 

[Clark16]

thanks for the input Ron as you were right i recently got fish and more live rock that just came out of a tank that was running since 92. Needless to say now the skimmer is working like a dream and all my fish i would say are happy and i even got a piece of coral now.