Skimmer concern - is it working right? *pics added*

[Spar]

My skimmer has been running for a month now but I have never had anything show up in my collection cup. The neck gets real cruddy-covered, but that is about it.

Specs:
180g tank
Trigger PS300 - inline
Mag24
water line is ~1" below the neck
air hole is wide-open

I cleaned it out last weekend real good. beckett included.

there appears to be plenty of bubbles forming.

Anything I am missing?

 

[commandertekki]

Do you have a pic? I would like to see the level of your bubbles. Your skimmer should have waste in the collection cup.

 

[vthondaboi]

that's a mighty big pump for the skimmer

on my old 180G a Mag 12 ran it like a champ, output was above water line

on my 60G with a 1500GPH pump it doesn't work as well, but the output was below the water line

 

[Spar]

i will go take a pic right now and post it.

I had a Mag12 running for the first 3 weeks with no luck. called David and he receommended the bigger pump Mag24, as 1800gph is really the minimum for that sized skimmer. Can't tell any difference in effectiveness though.

 

[Spar]

Here are a couple pics. This is while in action with the Mag24. Looked identical with the Mag12 for the first 3 weeks.

The neck gunk accumulation is after 1 week.

edit>> the water level appears lower right now because the auto-top-off system should be turning on any minute. usually is at the level the gunk begins at.

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[JasonJones]

Yeah I would say that is working pretty well, nothing to worry about there

 

[Spar]

think my bio-load just is pretty low considering the size of the tank? nothing much to pick up?

I only have 2 Clowns (1 lg 1 sm) and 3 chromis in the 180g.

this is not counting 3 tangs I picked up last week... probably haven't contributed much to anything yet though.

 

[Spar]

cleaned it 1 week ago. That gunk is 1 weeks worth of accumulation... pretty nasty.

when whiping it off, it looks mainly to be crap from the miracle mud in my refugium.

Those trigger PS's are extremely easy to clean and put back on. so don't mind doing it weekly if necessary.

the tank itself is only 1 month old. about when should I actually start seeing full accumulation of crap in the PS that the container becomes full more often? I was originally told that I should expect it to fill up every other day or more often :shock: nothing near that yet.

 

[Spar]

@Matt wrote:

adjusting it higher or lower on the water level? i.e. which way is dryer and which way is wetter.

 

[melev]

As you close the valve, the water level in the skimmer will rise. This will produce wetter skimmate. If it is too high, you'll pull out a lot of watery skimmate and need to open the valve a bit to make the water level lower in the skimmer.

If you prefer, by an all plastic toilet cleaning brush to get that sludge out of there. I prefer to clean it out daily so my skimmer works at its best every day. But if you skimmer takes a little work to open up, weekly would be better than nothing. Some people hardly clean it at all, but this limits what the skimmer can do.