Protein Skimmer help

[booth2010]

Hello all, first lemme describe my setup. I have a 29g DT with a 20g sump (only abt 15g of water to leave room for power outage). In the DT I have roughly 35 lbs of dry rock and 2lbs of live rock. There is a clown, a damsel, a hermit, a porcelain crab, a skunk shrimp, and a starfish. There is a 2" sand bed I didn't use live sand. In the sump there is a small fuge section with a 2" sand bed and abt 5 lbs of dry rock. The tank is drilled with 3/4" PVC for the overflow and a 2000 LPH (box is in liters not gallons :/ ) return pump. Now for skimmer part lol. I just bought a Reef Octopus NW-110-6520B. It has an Aquatrance AQ-1000s pump. I heard the return needs to match the skimmer but idk if these will work together? The return pump is actually too strong for the intake so I would say 60-75% of the water is actually being sent back to the sump with not a whole lot being sent to the DT. I have no idea how to correctly tune the skimmer but I think it's okay for now. Thanks for any help...

 

[kpiotrowski]

I'm not fully understanding

"I heard the return needs to match the skimmer but idk if these will work together? The return pump is actually too strong for the intake so I would say 60-75% of the water is actually being sent back to the sump with not a whole lot being sent to the DT"

can you clarify? pics would help.

Most skimmers of this type like to be in about 6-8 inches of water. from there you adjust the gate valve on the skimmer output untill you get a nice foam column that doesn't overflow the cup. it should have a water level line on the skimmer body.

too little water in sump generaly result in too dry of skim and difficulty in getting the foam column to rise.

too much water in the sump generaly results not enough foam production,(too much water ratio in the skimmer body) and the skimer cup wanting to overflow.