skimmer bubbling over

brettdis · Dec 29, 2018

I have an eshoppe psk 100h hang on skimmer. Its been running since may. No issues. Suddenly the other day it started bubbling over. I adjust the water flow. I can't turn it down anymore. I have been battling a nitrate issue. My local store sold me some liquid called no pox. Also sold me a small filter packed with nitrate media. Its been working but now everything has a white film on it. So is the no pox causing the skimmer to bubble over? How far into the water should my intake tube be? Should my outtake tube be in the water or out? Right now the outtake is in the water and the intake is 4 or 5 inches in. I added a pi of it bubbling over. I wipe it but 20 minutes later its bubbling over again. The power head picture shows the white film that is all over everything.

Brad Miller · Dec 29, 2018

Anything added to a tank may make a skimmer do this, even changing the filter sock can in some cases.
You can shut it off while you do certain things, or you can tape or block off the air inlet area and experiment with needle holes added as needed.

PatW · Dec 30, 2018

I had this problem once.

Here is the trick that worked for me.

1. I turned off the skimmer. I cleaned out and emptied the cup.

2. I turned on the skimmer. I let the cup fill up. Turned off the skimmer and emptied the cup. I repeated this several times.

3. After a few iterations, whatever was in the water to make the skimmer go nuts had been pretty near removed. The skimmer settled down and behaved normally.

garbled · Dec 30, 2018

NoPoX will absolutely make your skimmer go nuts. Especially if you accidentally overdosed, but even if you did not. That white film is probably a bacterial film, and having that much makes me believe you may be dosing too much of the nopox.

As for the skimmer, it's doing it's job. When you run nopox, or other carbon systems, the skimmer becomes the nutrient export. Because you have a ton of bacteria growing, it's going mad trying to pull it all out. Just keep emptying it, those are probably nitrates it's pulling out. You need it to get back into equilibrium.