breaking in skimmers?

so i got my octopus HB-100 skimmer today. its been running for about 10 hours now and it is making a ton of little tiny bubbles in my tank. I looked at previous posts and they mostly said that it needs to break in. my question is what is happening when it breaks in? how will whatever it does make it produce more foam and skin? how long will it break in? will it have to be broke in everytime i clean it?

 

I think it takes about 2 days to break in. As for the rest of the questions, I'm also anxious to know the answers.

 

the plastic on a new skimmer will have oils and other junk on it from the factory and will need time to run for that stuff to get cleaned off. So once it runs for a bit with SW it will eventually get cleaned off and allow the skimmer to produce bubbles. So it is kinda like when you stick your finger in a beer or soda that is all foamed up and then the foam collapses from the oils on your finger...The oils on the skimmer are causing the foam to collapse and not allowing it to climb the riser tube. Once the skimmer has run for a bit and those oils are cleansed out then it wont need to "break in" again after you clean the skimmer.

 

also if it is a new tank... the tank will need to accumulate disolved organics in order for the skimmer to have anything to skim out. So a new skimmer on a new tank usually takes longer to "break in" than a new skimmer on an established tank.

 

thanks

 

Mine took about a week to break in, so don't worry too much if it isn't foaming in a couple of days.

 

I have a fairly new Octopus NW 110 (in sump). The instructions were terrible (actually non-existent) and it took probably a week to get the parameters right. At first the water level was too high and it was producing tons of liquid, then it was too low and not producing anything. It's now producing stinky stuff and isn't too liquid or too solid. It took some manipulating, but seems to be on the right track now.