Skimmer bubbles never reach cup on new tank

kinetic · Sep 19, 2017

Quick question:

I'm cycling a new tank with a Simplicity 120 DC skimmer. Even with the pump at full blast, the water level opened up all the way, and the air screw open pretty big, the bubbles only get halfway up the body of the skimmer.

The cycle is dead/dry rock and dead/dry sand. Cycling with Ammonium Chloride and Dr. Tim's One and Only bacteria.

Is this normal?

(Red Sea Reefer 170, Simplicity 120 DC)

SashimiTurtle · Sep 19, 2017

Skimmers do have a break in, and the height of the bubbles will rise with the amount of suspended particles in the water... but it should reach the bottom of the cup. What water level is recommended for that skimmer? Is there anything blocking the orifice? If you have it maxed out, and it's not going 5th grade science fair volcano mode, I would think it's either too shallow, or something is blocking the orifice.

kinetic · Sep 19, 2017

Robin Haselden said:
Skimmers do have a break in, and the height of the bubbles will rise with the amount of suspended particles in the water... but it should reach the bottom of the cup. What water level is recommended for that skimmer? Is there anything blocking the orifice? If you have it maxed out, and it's not going 5th grade science fair volcano mode, I would think it's either too shallow, or something is blocking the orifice.

Yeah, breaking in is definitely something I was thinking about too. The skimmer has been running for about a 5 days now, and the bubbles are still pretty low. The area where the bubbles are breaking is getting a bit dirty, so there's enough particulates to at least get into it. In fact, when I first turned it on, the bubbles did 5th grade science class on me, so I just opened the drain to let it run for awhile, but the next day it never got anywhere close.

My water level is in the recommended level too. I pulled the orifice off, nothing's in there either. Odd!

SashimiTurtle · Sep 19, 2017

Give it some more time. If in a few days it still wont skim right, try raising the water level in your sump a bit. I had to play with the water level on my bubble magus curve 5 for a few weeks until I got it dialed in just right. Skims thick smelly stuff like a champ after that. Your sump is adjustable, right? If you do adjust sump level, it'll throw off your ATO. So adjust that at the same time.

kinetic · Sep 19, 2017

Robin Haselden said:
Give it some more time. If in a few days it still wont skim right, try raising the water level in your sump a bit. I had to play with the water level on my bubble magus curve 5 for a few weeks until I got it dialed in just right. Skims thick smelly stuff like a champ after that. Your sump is adjustable, right? If you do adjust sump level, it'll throw off your ATO. So adjust that at the same time.

I can't adjust the level of the sump. It's not the height.

I've had a lot of other skimmers in the past, and to be fair, most of them did the same thing the entire time I ran them (years). Never skimmed a thing unfortunately. Maybe I just have bad luck. One of them was a Bubble King, still didn't do much.

roberthu526 · Sep 19, 2017

It can take weeks for a new skimmer to break in. Also the amount of organic in the water matters. You may not have enough billows in the tank for the skimmer to work on yet.

kinetic · Sep 19, 2017

roberthu526 said:
It can take weeks for a new skimmer to break in. Also the amount of organic in the water matters. You may not have enough billows in the tank for the skimmer to work on yet.

So is it possible that at some point the water will go up? I understand breaking in and a skimmer working afterwards, but I've never understood why the bubbles wouldn't be high enough to get into the cup at first.

I guess my main concern is, should I worry that my skimmer is faulty? Or just wait it out. At what point should I escalate this to a potential hardware problem?

SashimiTurtle · Sep 19, 2017

You want the bubbles right at the bottom of the cup, so when you remove the cup they barely come out the top of the body. The solid matter will make the bubbles rise and then get skimmed out.

kinetic · Sep 19, 2017

Robin Haselden said:
You want the bubbles right at the bottom of the cup, so when you remove the cup they barely come out the top of the body. The solid matter will make the bubbles rise and then get skimmed out.

Right I know that. I've had skimmers since 2005, but it just concerns me that this one isn't even getting close to the bottom of the cup. It literally comes up about 4 inches from the water depth.

Water Dog · Sep 19, 2017

For right now, if it were me, I'd turn the skimmer off. Let the cycle happen first. With the skimmer on IMO, you're just slowing down the nitrogen cycle process, since you're using dry rock and dry sand. I think your skimmer performance (or lack thereof) is indicative the lack of dissolved organic compounds due to your "sterile" start up.

Scurvy · Sep 19, 2017

Your 1st post mentions the water level being all the way open. You'll want to close that off a ways to get the water level to rise towards the cup. i dont have experience with this skimmer but mine runs at 2/3rds closed to get the water level where it needs to be.

kinetic · Sep 19, 2017

Water Dog said:
For right now, if it were me, I'd turn the skimmer off. Let the cycle happen first. With the skimmer on IMO, you're just slowing down the nitrogen cycle process, since you're using dry rock and dry sand. I think your skimmer performance (or lack thereof) is indicative the lack of dissolved organic compounds due to your "sterile" start up.

Can you help explain why the skimmer would slow down the process right now? I don't understand, especially since it's not actually "skimming," just blowing bubbles into the air. The water doesn't get close to the cup. Is it the bubbles?

Scurvy said:
Your 1st post mentions the water level being all the way open. You'll want to close that off a ways to get the water level to rise towards the cup. i dont have experience with this skimmer but mine runs at 2/3rds closed to get the water level where it needs to be.

Oh interesting. I thought having it "wide open" meant the most water inside the skimmer. I'll close it up a bit. Thank you.

haanstang · Sep 19, 2017

Scurvy said:
Your 1st post mentions the water level being all the way open. You'll want to close that off a ways to get the water level to rise towards the cup. i dont have experience with this skimmer but mine runs at 2/3rds closed to get the water level where it needs to be.

+1

Scurvy · Sep 19, 2017

kinetic said:
Can you help explain why the skimmer would slow down the process right now? I don't understand, especially since it's not actually "skimming," just blowing bubbles into the air. The water doesn't get close to the cup. Is it the bubbles?

Oh interesting. I thought having it "wide open" meant the most water inside the skimmer. I'll close it up a bit. Thank you.

Wide open is actually allowing the water to pass through the skimmer without much contact time to the air bubbles and creating no foam/skimmate. Closing it off keeps water in the chamber forcing contact time to air and thus that stinky goodness you're looking for.

Water Dog · Sep 19, 2017

kinetic said:
Can you help explain why the skimmer would slow down the process right now? I don't understand, especially since it's not actually "skimming," just blowing bubbles into the air. The water doesn't get close to the cup. Is it the bubbles?

Scurvy is spot on with his adjustment of the water level in your skimmer.

That said, I should revise my response and say once you think you've figured out how to get your skimmer to work, turn it off during the cycle. IMO, you don't want to be pulling skimmate out during the cycle as it is this crud in your tank that will speed up the nitrogen cycle. Taking it out will just eliminate food for the beneficial bacteria to consume, thus slowing the process down.

SashimiTurtle · Sep 19, 2017

Scurvy said:
Your 1st post mentions the water level being all the way open. You'll want to close that off a ways to get the water level to rise towards the cup. i dont have experience with this skimmer but mine runs at 2/3rds closed to get the water level where it needs to be.

Heh, I missed that... I thought it was on full recirc, not full bypass. The more open you have that valve, the less water is actually going up into the skimmer body. It's a bypass valve.

kinetic · Sep 19, 2017

Water Dog said:
Scurvy is spot on with his adjustment of the water level in your skimmer.

That said, I should revise my response and say once you think you've figured out how to get your skimmer to work, turn it off during the cycle. IMO, you don't want to be pulling skimmate out during the cycle as it is this crud in your tank that will speed up the nitrogen cycle. Taking it out will just eliminate food for the beneficial bacteria to consume, thus slowing the process down.

Sounds good. I don't really have anything in the tank to skim that would add to the cycle. Just dosing ammonium chloride for now, but I'll turn it off anyway just in case once it starts to actually work! Thanks.

Robin Haselden said:
Heh, I missed that... I thought it was on full recirc, not full bypass. The more open you have that valve, the less water is actually going up into the skimmer body. It's a bypass valve.

Yeah, I guess I was thinking the opposite. Oops! Thanks everyone for catching that.

So I've now closed it as far as I can, and no change hahaha. Goodness, I don't know what's going on. I think I'll pull it out of the sump and run it in vinegar/water again to see if it'll still overflow. When I did that before, it was overflowing like crazy, even on a lower pump setting. If it's not, then I think there's definitely something wrong.