skimmer is hard to dial in....... help

[My90Sea]

hey everyone. I have a Simplicity 320dc skimmer that is tough to dial in. I will mess with it for a few days and get it producing foam and the net day the foam is 4 inches lower. it will never stay put. I feel like i'm messing with it often. its been 3 months or so...probably 4. any ideas? running a red sea 750xxl. I have about 6 fish or so.

 

[ndrwater]

Set it where it seems to be working best..... And leave it. Foam being low for a couple of days isn't that big a deal. The tank is still relatively new, and probably doesn't have enough dissolved organics to be skimming constantly.

 

[My90Sea]

there is algae on my rock. im sure it has enough to be pulled by a skimmer. I will set it at a good spot but it wont last more than 2 days before the foam is way down the neck.

 

[Flippers4pups]

there is algae on my rock. im sure it has enough to be pulled by a skimmer. I will set it at a good spot but it wont last more than 2 days before the foam is way down the neck.

Is the exit tube out of the water? Sounds like air trapped in the exit tube.

 

[Billldg]

I feel your pain, I have a Vertex Omega 180i and was about to purchase another skimmer as I was having nothing but problems with it overflowing. Then after some great members of this awesome forum convinced me to try it again as I had it sit in the sump for a month or so and my tank gained another month of age I plugged it back in and presto, it started to work like it was supposed to work. My thinking was that my tank still wasn't balance out yet which caused the overflowing. Moral of the story is to give it some time, eventually it may work out and start to work properly.

 

[My90Sea]

I feel your pain, I have a Vertex Omega 180i and was about to purchase another skimmer as I was having nothing but problems with it overflowing. Then after some great members of this awesome forum convinced me to try it again as I had it sit in the sump for a month or so and my tank gained another month of age I plugged it back in and presto, it started to work like it was supposed to work. My thinking was that my tank still wasn't balance out yet which caused the overflowing. Moral of the story is to give it some time, eventually it may work out and start to work properly.

were u having algae and coral quality issues? what did u do in the meantime ? water changes?

 

[helljack6]

I had a simplicity 240 skimmer. I found the best way to adjust it is to do it by the user's manual. Line up your arrows, and "crack" your air intake and let it run until the skimmate production slows to almost indistinguishable from day to day (obviously empty it as necessary during this process). Then open up your air intake screw some more until the bubbles are constant at the height of the body where the cup connects (the black ring). Let run until skimmate production becomes consistent. At this point, adjust your water valve to skim either dry (arrows lined up) or wet (arrow on water valve at 90 to 180 degrees from arrow on skimmer body) At this point there should be no need to re-adjust your air intake restriction screw. This is how I did it with mine and it took about 3 weeks from start to finish, but once it was dialed in, skimmate production based on feeding and existing filtration methods became very predictable, and I knew instantly if a foreign substance such as soap from washing my hands or whatever got into the tank as the skimmate production would increase exponentially until it (the foreign yuck) was removed from the system by way of skimming and/or activated carbon. Hope this helps.

 

[Billldg]

My tank was only a couple months old and I plugged in my skimmer and it went nuts, so I unplugged it and left it in the sump for a month, meanwhile I started to use a carbon reactor to clean up the water. I had red hair algae starting to grow wildly so I would clean tank and scrub off as much algae and do a 25 percent water change to clean up the free floating algae that was left over from the cleaning. I ended up doing this 2 or 3 times. I also used GFO for a month to lower phosphates to get rid of algae, it worked but dropped my phosphates to 0, so be careful with it. I just think that I needed to clean up my water quality a little and let tank mature a little bit more before I could dial in my skimmer. Now its very predictable.

 

[My90Sea]

I have been running Phosguard to help out with phosphates... u think that can be causing anything? I run a carbon and phosguard reactor.

 

[roberthu526]

Is this your first skimmer? Many things affect skimmer performance. For example mysis shrimp will cause the foam head to collapse for an hour or two because of the oil content in the food. Or you may have an overpowered skimmer that skimmed all the protein in your water within hours so for the rest of the time it has nothing to creat foam on.

 

[My90Sea]

first skimmer for this setup. ive been in the hobby a while but never had a issue dialing in a skimmer until now.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Set it where it seems to be working best..... And leave it. Foam being low for a couple of days isn't that big a deal. The tank is still relatively new, and probably doesn't have enough dissolved organics to be skimming constantly.

This.

 

[roberthu526]

first skimmer for this setup. ive been in the hobby a while but never had a issue dialing in a skimmer until now.

Then it may have something to do with the specific model. Good luck though. Some skimmers just take more time to break in.

 

[cracker]

Just curious, Have You used a skimmer with both flow & air adjust in the past? Thanks!

 

[My90Sea]

Just curious, Have You used a skimmer with both flow & air adjust in the past? Thanks!

I have not. this is my first. I have followed a lot of directions on dialing it in but with no luck

 

[wesman42]

I have been running Phosguard to help out with phosphates... u think that can be causing anything? I run a carbon and phosguard reactor.

I'd be suuuuuper careful about using phosguard and not bottoming out your phosphates. When this happens, not always, but most likely Dinos!

As for the skimmer, how long TOTAL has the skimmer been operating? A few days? A week?

 

[My90Sea]

I'd be suuuuuper careful about using phosguard and not bottoming out your phosphates. When this happens, not always, but most likely Dinos!

As for the skimmer, how long TOTAL has the skimmer been operating? A few days? A week?

I have had this skimmer in the sump running for over 3 months. question about phosguard….. if I have algae starting up over my rock does that mean I still have phosphates? I don't think its at zero. there have been times that once I replaced the phosguard in my reactor the corals open up more and things look better.

 

[wesman42]

I have had this skimmer in the sump running for over 3 months. question about phosguard….. if I have algae starting up over my rock does that mean I still have phosphates? I don't think its at zero. there have been times that once I replaced the phosguard in my reactor the corals open up more and things look better.

It's certainly possible. Phosguard has a certain capacity for phosphates. When that capacity is reached it stops absorbing phosphates...I believe the instructions say that a small amount consistently is better than large quantities less frequently for this reason.

But, it's super easy in my opinion to bottom them out (I did the same thing, for too long). Just a friendly warning to check phosphates regularly with a test kit! I'm not against using it at all, it's just super easy to deplete them for too long if testing isn't done frequently enough.

 

[My90Sea]

It's certainly possible. Phosguard has a certain capacity for phosphates. When that capacity is reached it stops absorbing phosphates...I believe the instructions say that a small amount consistently is better than large quantities less frequently for this reason.

But, it's super easy in my opinion to bottom them out (I did the same thing, for too long). Just a friendly warning to check phosphates regularly with a test kit! I'm not against using it at all, it's just super easy to deplete them for too long if testing isn't done frequently enough.

I will take a look at everything on sunday. I appreciate everyone's help