Protein Skimmer Over foaming.

[Dierker2003]

Hey guys so I have a ten gallon nano with the coral life HOB marine filter with built in protein skimmer. It was working really well but last night I added a bag of aqua clear bio max media to help boost my biological filtration capacity as I have little live rock in the tank. Adding this bag of rock made my skimmer decide to start foaming like crazy and fills the chamber is seconds. I added some extra carbon and have been running the skimmer on low air to prevent it from filling too fast. Is there anything I can do to make this stop. Would a water change be the only way? Thanks. This is the media I added...

 

[Hemmdog]

Keep dumping it. It’s most likely excess silicates from the media.

 

[MTBake]

Add saltwater as needed to keep tank full. Treat it as a water change through your skimmer

 

[Dierker2003]

Add saltwater as needed to keep tank full. Treat it as a water change through your skimmer

Thank you. How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

 

[Dierker2003]

Keep dumping it. It’s most likely excess silicates from the media.

Thank you. How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

 

[Hemmdog]

Thank you. How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

Rinse media well before putting it in your tank. It’s not unusual though to have your skimmer go nuts when adding new things even if rinsed well.

 

[Dierker2003]

Rinse media well before putting it in your tank. It’s not unusual though to have your skimmer go nuts when adding new things even if rinsed well.

Sounds good thanks!

 

[MTBake]

Thank you. How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

It can be difficult to prevent. Rinsing the media well with ro/di water should help some.

I have this happen from time to time and always treat it as a water change. My skimmer cup has a drain line though. It's easy for me to set that in a bucket and just let it fill. It's more work if you have to manually remove the cup to dump. Just keep an eye on it and add salt water as needed. Should stop within half hour to an hour. Seems to be the case when it happens to me anyway.

 

[lilgrounchuck]

Thank you. How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

Rinse new media thoroughly before adding it. That usually helps. Are you using the drain tube on the cup to drain it to an external container? If it’s going nuts maybe run a length of tubing down to a 5 gal bucket to keep it from overflowing the cup until it settles down.

 

[Dierker2003]

It can be difficult to prevent. Rinsing the media well with ro/di water should help some.

I have this happen from time to time and always treat it as a water change. My skimmer cup has a drain line though. It's easy for me to set that in a bucket and just let it fill. It's more work if you have to manually remove the cup to dump. Just keep an eye on it and add salt water as needed. Should stop within half hour to an hour. Seems to be the case when it happens to me anyway.
[/QUOT
It has been overfilling for all of today and all last night but I am just starting to remove water now.

 

[MTBake]

Have you been discarding that water from the skimmer cup since last night. Or dumping it back into the tank?

 

[Dierker2003]

Just

Have you been discarding that water from the skimmer cup since last night. Or dumping it back into the tank?

Just have been letting it over flow back into the tank.

 

[MTBake]

Start dumping it. Putting it back is just adding what ever is making the skimmer go crazy right back into the water.

 

[Dierker2003]

Start dumping it. Putting it back is just adding what ever is making the skimmer go crazy right back into the water.

Sounds good