Tuning a protein skimmer

Ive used the Nyos 160 for over a year, worked really well but upgraded to an RK2 X-flo. I might replace my aquamaxx in another tank with the Nyos.
Here are a few tips.

break-in. There was a great post above about vinegar. What i do is use a mild soap (i use the aquarium bar soap), rinse the unit and place in a bin of hot water, an aquarium heater turned to max temp & vinegar. A trick to speed up the process is if you have another skimmer, dump that skimmate down the neck of the skimmer you're breaking in. Let it run for awhile and it will broken in, just need to tune it in your system.

Get a label or sharpie, something that is permanent, and near the valve open / close dial, mark the location of the hole shown in the picture on post #14 above. 6 months from now, when the simmer has some build-up, it will be hard to see the hole The reason i suggest this is from personal experience. I knocked the air silencer bracket off and after i put it on i accidentally rotated that hole a bit when i put it back on. It took me awhile to figure out what was going on which included a complete breakdown and cleaning of the skimmer.

dont leave the air wide open, close it down a bit so the screw isnt touching the sides of the inlet but is close. It looks like this was done already in post #19.

The skimmer should be in 8.5" of water. Any more or less will diminish the performance.

Close the valve to raise the water level. While this skimmer did a great dry skim, the foam was so thick that it would come out of the top of the collection cup lid as well as gather in the neck (which is a pita to clean). I definitely suggest running a wetter skim so it looks like tea. IIRC the water level will be around the joint for the collection cup.

This skimmer works well with swabbie and collection bucket. I used the avast marine model 6" small but the wiper barely fit. The micro is almost a better choice.

i hope that helps a bit!
 
Ive used the Nyos 160 for over a year, worked really well but upgraded to an RK2 X-flo. I might replace my aquamaxx in another tank with the Nyos.
Here are a few tips.

break-in. There was a great post above about vinegar. What i do is use a mild soap (i use the aquarium bar soap), rinse the unit and place in a bin of hot water, an aquarium heater turned to max temp & vinegar. A trick to speed up the process is if you have another skimmer, dump that skimmate down the neck of the skimmer you're breaking in. Let it run for awhile and it will broken in, just need to tune it in your system.

Get a label or sharpie, something that is permanent, and near the valve open / close dial, mark the location of the hole shown in the picture on post #14 above. 6 months from now, when the simmer has some build-up, it will be hard to see the hole The reason i suggest this is from personal experience. I knocked the air silencer bracket off and after i put it on i accidentally rotated that hole a bit when i put it back on. It took me awhile to figure out what was going on which included a complete breakdown and cleaning of the skimmer.

dont leave the air wide open, close it down a bit so the screw isnt touching the sides of the inlet but is close. It looks like this was done already in post #19.

The skimmer should be in 8.5" of water. Any more or less will diminish the performance.

Close the valve to raise the water level. While this skimmer did a great dry skim, the foam was so thick that it would come out of the top of the collection cup lid as well as gather in the neck (which is a pita to clean). I definitely suggest running a wetter skim so it looks like tea. IIRC the water level will be around the joint for the collection cup.

This skimmer works well with swabbie and collection bucket. I used the avast marine model 6" small but the wiper barely fit. The micro is almost a better choice.

i hope that helps a bit!
Here you go. From someone that had the same one.

Think I got ya going in the right direction though lol.
 
If you run them in a tub of water with distilled white vinegar it will clean it of any films from manufacturing of the plastics and after that you can put it right in the tank. It will break it in faster. All new skimmers have to get broken in per say. They have to build up there bio films etc. when you buy a new one everything inside is very slick and has no resistance so it's very hard to set. I would run in the solution for an hour than place in your sump. No rinsing required. Learned this from @TJ's Reef

Just take out the O-rings and rubber parts before the vinegar.
 
I have the same skimmer and it also took quite awhile to break it in. I thought i was doing something wrong and went searching the internet for suggestions. The two things that helped me the most was closing the air valve all the way and then opening by turning the knob two full turns then using that as a starting point, the other was raising it so the water level was as suggested in the manual. Keep at it with small incremental changes and it will start working well.
 
If you run them in a tub of water with distilled white vinegar it will clean it of any films from manufacturing of the plastics and after that you can put it right in the tank. It will break it in faster. All new skimmers have to get broken in per say. They have to build up there bio films etc. when you buy a new one everything inside is very slick and has no resistance so it's very hard to set. I would run in the solution for an hour than place in your sump. No rinsing required. Learned this from @TJ's Reef

Can the vinegar method be used to clean a skimmer every 6 months or so? I can just place entire skimmer in a vinegar bath with RODI water and place back into my sump? Also what ratio of vinegar to RODI water?
 
Can the vinegar method be used to clean a skimmer every 6 months or so? I can just place entire skimmer in a vinegar bath with RODI water and place back into my sump? Also what ratio of vinegar to RODI water?

Funny that you mention that. My Nyos is in vinegar and rodi for cleaning now so I dont think there are any issues with this method, i haven't had any before.
 
Funny that you mention that. My Nyos is in vinegar and rodi for cleaning now so I dont think there are any issues with this method, i haven't had any before.

What ratio of RODI water to vinegar?

How long do you let Skimmer run in bath?

Do you dismantle entire skimmer when cleaning?
 
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These bubbles to big?
I just got the nyos quantum 120 skimmer

It's been 1 week. I've never had many issuer tuning my old protein skimmer. This one I'm having trouble to find the sweet spot. Does anyone have any pointers? I'm just confused on how much the air valve should be opened and where the water level in the skimmer should be. I know beginner questions but all skimmers work differently..
I hope your new skimmer eventually produces the skimmate you are looking for (we all are) I have considered a NYOS because of the claim they are "silent". Are they really? Are you happy with that aspect? Let us know if the skimming gets better, I've always struggled with tuning a skimmer. Good thread
 
What ratio of RODI water to vinegar?

How long do you let Skimmer run in bath?

Do you dismantle entire skimmer when cleaning?

I placed the skimmer in a 5 gallon bucket, pulled off the collection cup. I added about 1/2 gallon of vinegar and roughly 3 gallons of rodi water, enough so the water level in the bucket was high but wouldn't overflow the bucket.

Theoretically this method will clean the skimmer in a matter of a few hours however I started running this on Friday of last week and it's still going as of today. I could have pulled the cleaned skimmer out on Saturday (or even Friday evening) but I have been busy so I just let it run. Since I have some time tonight, i'll pull it out then. This same ratio of rodi - vinegar works great on powerheads / wave makers. I had a gyre that had a lot of precip on it and this cleaned it up in a matter of hours.

Disassembly isn't useful for this situation since you want the skimmer to run so it cleans itself. Granted overall time wise this takes longer however it is a lot easier and less labor intensive than disassembling the skimmer.
 
I hope your new skimmer eventually produces the skimmate you are looking for (we all are) I have considered a NYOS because of the claim they are "silent". Are they really? Are you happy with that aspect? Let us know if the skimming gets better, I've always struggled with tuning a skimmer. Good thread

I know you're addressing the OP but figured i'd throw my 2 cents in.

The Nyos produces an excellent skimmate, far greater than my old reef octopus and a bit better than the aquamaxx cone q2. (The RK2 X-flow is the best of the bunch but it's not a fair comparison since the RK2 is rated for larger tanks and im using a vectra m1 to feed it)

When I started reefing, one thing that took me awhile to learn (the hard way) is that closing the valve raises the level inside the skimmer producing a wetter skimmate. I found that to be counter intuitive.

The Nyos is a very quiet skimmer. I couldnt hear it even though, at that time, i was using a vectra L1 as a return pump which is also fairly quiet but is a motorhead concert in comparison.
 
I know you're addressing the OP but figured i'd throw my 2 cents in.

The Nyos produces an excellent skimmate, far greater than my old reef octopus and a bit better than the aquamaxx cone q2. (The RK2 X-flow is the best of the bunch but it's not a fair comparison since the RK2 is rated for larger tanks and im using a vectra m1 to feed it)

When I started reefing, one thing that took me awhile to learn (the hard way) is that closing the valve raises the level inside the skimmer producing a wetter skimmate. I found that to be counter intuitive.

The Nyos is a very quiet skimmer. I couldnt hear it even though, at that time, i was using a vectra L1 as a return pump which is also fairly quiet but is a motorhead concert in comparison.
Thanks for the info. I appreciate it.
 
I hope your new skimmer eventually produces the skimmate you are looking for (we all are) I have considered a NYOS because of the claim they are "silent". Are they really? Are you happy with that aspect? Let us know if the skimming gets better, I've always struggled with tuning a skimmer. Good thread

It's getting better. Gotta make some minor tweaks and I'll be golden now and yes I can't even hear it.
 
Hello,

I do not write your language well, but I will try my best.

I have recorded a video for you from my skimmer, I was not able to produce cream before, I had my whole open air before, I then started to close my air and everything started to work.


When I buy new skimmer, it takes 1 week to work correctly.


regards
 
My skimmer stopped skimming good yesterday. Not sure what's going on. Has this happened to any of you guys?
 
Yea, for me it's happened when I've used poly filter, after a cleaning, after water changes etc.
 

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