Reef devil question

[Wes]

what?! you dont want it to skim that well?! so many people would die to have a skimmer work that well, lol...i guess if you dont subscribe to skimming completely and dont want to overdue it, i see both sides of it...but, ummm...does it have an airline feed that you could maybe place an air valve and restrict it a bit?

 

[Wes]

you will get more wet vs dry but you are also taking out alot more beneficial things...supposedly.

debated everywhere you read though and you will find conflicting opinions nonstop.

 

[dp1416]

I really like to skim in the middle. I would not complain if you are skimming dry as it is still doing its job, just not as quickly. the wetter you skim, the more you top off. Can you raise the water level in the sump or is your skimmer sitting on top of a riser? Normally you can adjust the output of your skimmer to raise the water in the neck of your skimmer which will cause the bubbles to rise faster and not have time to collect in the neck or cup causing wetter skimmate. I would check the output of the skimmer and adjust it small fractions of a time until you get the skimmate you want. I have had those skimmers and usally the gate valve will allow you to get that you want.

Personally it sounds like you are not pushing enough water through the skimmer. What pump are you using to feed the skimmer and what size of tank? Great skimmer, just uses a heat hungry energy munching pump.

 

[dp1416]

On other thing, if you are adusting the gate valve as much as you can...could be your tank has a lot of organich compounds that you are pulling out and is not keeping up with your tank. I have experienced this in the past with an undersized skimmer. What model, what size tank, and what is your bio load. if you feed heavily that makes a big difference.

 

[dp1416]

if you are not running wet with a mag 12 running that skimmer something is absolutley wrong. a mag 12 should be making more green tea than the boston tea party. Have you taken the skimmer apart and cleaned it...not sure if you have the down draft or becket model but if they get clogged it will restrict the flow quite a bit. the air valve should be sucking air like no bodys business. Check the air flow and see if you can feel suction, if not it could be clogged. no air flow equates to finer bubbles and therefore dryer skimmate. Which model do you have? I would empty the cup every other day...nothing like you are talking about. pics would help of the skimmate. It is possible the pump is leaking as well. Mag pumps are not preassure pumps and you might consider changing to a differnt pump. But before i would do that, i would HIGHLY consider a different skimmer. Not knocking yours as they do what they should, but you can get so much more for so much less electricity and heat.

 

[bimmerzs]

@acat1976 wrote:

Did you try sucking some hot/warm water down the air intake. If possible you can also raise the height of the gate valve, you may need a more pressure rated pump for that style of skimmer or a bigger mag pump.

Cheers,

 

[dp1416]

those skimmers are down draft skimmers and will usually have little bio-balls in the tube the water feeds in. The air line tubing sucks in air with the water and the pressure of the water and air over the mini bioballs will create tons of micro bubbles. I dont care what they say, a pressure rated pump will force water across those and will do 10x better than any other not pressure pump.

To clean the skimmer, take of the cap where the water hose from the pump goes, empty it out and take the balls out of there and wash them and clean the tube chamber where they sit.

Also, like Ron stated, try running water down that tube by letting it suck water into the skimmer. You should feel a pretty descent suction out of that tube. The more air, the better. I actually had to put a valve on the air hose because it pulled too much water.

Check you pump, it could be going out of have something restricting the intake and not giving you as much water as you think that it would.

 

[dp1416]

the air inlet, the little white plastic elbow. That will allow fresh water to clog anything that is in there out. i would check the bioballs as well and clean them.

 

[bimmerzs]

@acat1976 wrote:

Did you read donnie's comment, the amount of bioball's in there would not likely cause your issue. If there were not enough, one would think there would be a reduction in the amount of fine bubbles created, your skimming performance would drop and you would then have to close off the gate valve(which raises the water level inside the skimmer) and skim wetter. You are able to skim dry and get very good production from your skimmer(something a lot of reefers wish they could do), but can't skim wetter. To skim wetter you will need to incresase the pressure inside the body of the skimmer, which is accomplished by raising the water level(close off the gate valve). You can't do that, so that point's at the input....the pump ain't performing or it ain't enough for your application. If it walk's like a duck..........

Cheers,

 

[Guest]

i ran one of thoghs skimmers on my 60 and i would say the amount of bio balls is very inprtant.check fac. specs. and put the right amount of bio balls in plus one ,worked for me , and every one or two munths i had to get a cote hanger and stick it down the tower and ster up the balls to get it skimming better. thay get stuck and dont make good bubles. and if i closed the gat valve 3/4 it would bubble over and fill my cup in minits. and if i didnt put a tube on my air intake it would push water out the air intake. all and all i would test the pump by filling a one gal jug and timeing to see how long it takes to fill up ,do the math and see if its giving you what it should be.

 

[Guest]

add a ball or two and see how that will do for you