jps1981
New Member
EDIT: Nevermind. The problem is that I have bubbles and not foam so I'm trying to level out the wrong thing between drought and flood, where foam is the middle ground that I don't have. I've read up on that. Either the tank is too clean (low population, not overfed, regular water changes, so probably), or the skimmer needs to break in (which I doubt, since it's like 2 pieces of plastic glued together).
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I have a 1yr old 30g FOWLR and decided to add my first skimmer to it because the phosphates are getting high (25% water change/month already). I am starting with a cheap skimmer on purpose because I wanted some training wheels so I knew what to seek out when I got serious, and how to set it up properly.
This is a really simple question that I can't find an answer to. Where should the foam/bubbles inside a skimmer come to? The directions given for setup are really not clear. "Just over the edge" doesn't help. Just over the edge of what? There's lots of edges. And how much is "just"? Constant flow? Only once every 10 minutes? Sigh.
Here is a picture of the skimmer. I've doodled lines on it so we could use them as reference points -
I am pretty sure the foam should be idling at the green, just at the tip but not enough to constantly overflow. But I'd really like some more feedback. I worry that it's maybe supposed to be at the blue and only periodic 'spikes' in bubbles are supposed to push over the edge. If I leave it at the green, the tank tends to fill way too fast. When it's at the blue, I seem to get nothing over 12 hours.
For what's worth, modifications have been made to the skimmer. The air pump was replaced with a Tetra Whisper I had laying around, and the gunk tank had an exit line drilled/added that's being fed to a 2 liter bottle (basically making a huge gunk tank instead of tiny cup). The tiny cup is air tight right now to force the refuse up the line by air pressure (the 2 liter is not air tight or even capped). But these problems were there before it was modded.
Thanks for your time.
Edit: changed some wording to differentiate the tiny cup and large bottle better.
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I have a 1yr old 30g FOWLR and decided to add my first skimmer to it because the phosphates are getting high (25% water change/month already). I am starting with a cheap skimmer on purpose because I wanted some training wheels so I knew what to seek out when I got serious, and how to set it up properly.
This is a really simple question that I can't find an answer to. Where should the foam/bubbles inside a skimmer come to? The directions given for setup are really not clear. "Just over the edge" doesn't help. Just over the edge of what? There's lots of edges. And how much is "just"? Constant flow? Only once every 10 minutes? Sigh.
Here is a picture of the skimmer. I've doodled lines on it so we could use them as reference points -
I am pretty sure the foam should be idling at the green, just at the tip but not enough to constantly overflow. But I'd really like some more feedback. I worry that it's maybe supposed to be at the blue and only periodic 'spikes' in bubbles are supposed to push over the edge. If I leave it at the green, the tank tends to fill way too fast. When it's at the blue, I seem to get nothing over 12 hours.
For what's worth, modifications have been made to the skimmer. The air pump was replaced with a Tetra Whisper I had laying around, and the gunk tank had an exit line drilled/added that's being fed to a 2 liter bottle (basically making a huge gunk tank instead of tiny cup). The tiny cup is air tight right now to force the refuse up the line by air pressure (the 2 liter is not air tight or even capped). But these problems were there before it was modded.
Thanks for your time.
Edit: changed some wording to differentiate the tiny cup and large bottle better.
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