bubbles are in the wrong spot

I've got a octopusBH-100F


There are three chambers. For some reason the chamber with the pump is rather low in the water level while the chamber with the cup and the return chamber are both having high water levels.

Further, it is not foaming. For some reason, the bubbles are somehow missing the middle chamber and going right into the return chamber... giving me major bubble storm.

Anyone have any idea on why the bubbles would be going to the wrong chamber?

 

Got a picture? I have never used one of those, but I'm an engineer and love to solve these types of mysteries.

 

here's one from the net

 

bump

 

bump again. haven't been able to resolve this yet.

 

It looks like the left chamber on the return is open at the bottom. In theory it should work, but in real life, the suction and pressure will cause that chamber to fill up with bubbles first, which is why the bubbles are getting sucked out into the return. The bubble chamber should be where the intake is (like CPR's design). It seems more of a design flaw on the manufacture/engineering side. Of course this doesn't really help with your dilemma. To fix the problem, it would need to be redesigned with angled baffles (again, like CPR design). What you could do to reduce the bubbles is to add another elbow on the outlet, so you have an upsidedown J. Get the tube to reach the surface of the water. The bubbles will pop as they hit the air, and the water will just boil over the top of the tube. It should also create enough pressure in the skimmer to fill up the center chamber so you can at least get some skimmate. I hope that makes sense?

 

Kind of... :-/


I've been using this skimmer for almost a year and this is the first time this problem has manifested.

 

Did you try covering the air intake tube so that only water is flowing threw, then release and let air sart again? Maybe this will reset the flow threw it? I have the the BH-1000, only has 2 chambers so I'm not much help

 

that's an interesting idea. I will try that.

 

Another thing to try is turning off the skimmer and priming the entire unit with water. That will reduce the initial suction into the last chamber. Also, have you cleaned out the rigid tubes to make sure you don't have any snails or debris that is restricting the flow? When my Bak-Pak stops working right, it's usually calcium and coralline deposits on the intake that mess things up.