will microbubbles hurt my coral?

[abirozy]

Hello

I have a 28 gallon nano led that is relatively new. I have about 30 lbs live sand and 20 lbs live rock. I am trying to start my aquamaxx hob-1 skimmer and have had overflow issues. In researching the reason, it was suggested that it needs to break in and I need to slowly get the amquel out that I had dosed my tank with. To solve this problem, I have attached an air gap (I think) to the air hose and have it dialed down so that very little air is getting in. Just enough to where it is producing some foam but not much. I was told this will allow it to run and build up a slime coat and the small amount of foam it is producing along with slight water changes every week will allow the amquel to come out.

1) I seem to be getting micro bubbles in my tank as a result. I only have a small frag of zoo's, a small frag of aquacultures pulsing xenia, and a ricordia... will the micro bubbles harm the corals? Or my fish for that matter.

Thanks from a newbie to the hobby.

 

[jservedio]

All skimmers produce microbubbles as they are breaking in (and some continue to produce some microbubbles after they break in) and no it isn't going to hurt anything. Amquel will be gone almost instantly as it interacts with ammonia, chlorine, nitrate, etc. so that shouldn't be affecting your skimmer.

If you continue to have microbubble problems after the skimmer is broken in (a few weeks), you can do some things to cut back on them like building a bubble trap or putting some foam on the outflow of the skimmer.

You definitely want your skimmer to breathe as much air as possible and control the height of the foam by adjusting the valve on the effluent - cutting air going into the skimmer cuts the skimming power, which is already limited on a small, HOB skimmer to begin with.

 

[abirozy]

I apologize as I am a newbie, what is the effluent?

 

[coloradoreef]

The microbubbles shouldn't harm anyone, but they personally drive me insane! I hate breaking in a new skimmer lol. The effluent is the water flowing out of your skimmer.