Malefactor
Membership Expired
I have the old model SWC Xtreme 250 on my 135G with currently a 25G sump that's half full. I know it's a bit over powered for my tank. It's supposed to be able to hand 180G of "Heavy" bio load and up to 300-350 gallons of "light" bio load...
When i first started it up, it pulled gunk out and ran great for a week or two. Now, head builds up about half way and just falls. Sometimes, it'll even get all the way to the top, but not actually spill over before falling... When i turn it off to clean it (as there's brown gunk ALL in the neck and on the inside of the chamber after a couple days) i start it back up and IMMEDIATELY it foams up almost to the neck and then collapses again. It'll stay collapsed for a while, they start to build up again. I can even see a light brown layer on the top of the foam being produced... Now, my hands are in there almost daily cleaning / spot feeding corals / have an algae problem and cleaning that up.
So, i've heard oils on your hands can cause the head to fall, as well as from feeding... I do frozen mysis shrimp every 3 days and every 3 days (the day after mysis shrimp) a frozen herbivore food. Then the third day, i do my zooplankton for corals and inverts. Would this be what's causing it to fall and it's not ever getting enough time to build back up? or is there something else that's going on that could cause this?
As well, this thing didn't come with instructions really. Just says have water level 8-10 inches... This is the first skimmer i've ever owned, so... 8-10 inches from what? The very bottom of the skimmer? the bubble plate where the actual micro bubbles and beginning of the skimming action occurs? So, from where do i count the 8-10 inches? Right now, i've got it set 10 inches from the very bottom.
When i first started it up, it pulled gunk out and ran great for a week or two. Now, head builds up about half way and just falls. Sometimes, it'll even get all the way to the top, but not actually spill over before falling... When i turn it off to clean it (as there's brown gunk ALL in the neck and on the inside of the chamber after a couple days) i start it back up and IMMEDIATELY it foams up almost to the neck and then collapses again. It'll stay collapsed for a while, they start to build up again. I can even see a light brown layer on the top of the foam being produced... Now, my hands are in there almost daily cleaning / spot feeding corals / have an algae problem and cleaning that up.
So, i've heard oils on your hands can cause the head to fall, as well as from feeding... I do frozen mysis shrimp every 3 days and every 3 days (the day after mysis shrimp) a frozen herbivore food. Then the third day, i do my zooplankton for corals and inverts. Would this be what's causing it to fall and it's not ever getting enough time to build back up? or is there something else that's going on that could cause this?
As well, this thing didn't come with instructions really. Just says have water level 8-10 inches... This is the first skimmer i've ever owned, so... 8-10 inches from what? The very bottom of the skimmer? the bubble plate where the actual micro bubbles and beginning of the skimming action occurs? So, from where do i count the 8-10 inches? Right now, i've got it set 10 inches from the very bottom.