Foam party rave!!!

My Coralife has been running for about two weeks with no problems up until today. When I came home foam was gushing out all over the place, lucky for me I am a cautious person and mounted the skimmer on the inside of my tank and nothing flooded onto the floor. If it had i would probably have been kicked out by my roommate....

I have been adding about half a capful of purple up twice a week with no problems until today. I turned the pump way down and it is still foaming like a mad man. It is not the air intake because it is foam coming out not water. Is this normal break in for the coarlife and will the crazy foam action eventually stop? Can anyone enlighten me on what the holy hanna is going on????????

If this is normal, people should be warned better about this spontaneous foam surge.

 

I'm not to knowledgeable in this area, however, I know that certain things will cause skimmers to go haywire!
My advice to you is to shut down your skimmer for a few hours when you add things like that(especially liquid foods).

 

It's not normal break in you got something in your water be it lotion or soap or something of the nature or something like Bio-Coat or Aqua Safe.

That or something spawned in your tank my skimmer freaks out when my urchins mass spawn. All that protein in the water makes it blow its top.

 

I have just been using the normal dose of purple up- Ive been using it for over two weeks now and nothing has happened in the past.. Im pretty sure that it is not lotion or anything like that.

Since it seems that this is not normal i guess that i will just keep the pump turned down over night and see what it is doing tomorrow.. I hope it is doing better then. I should probobly flush down the toilet all the stuff that collects in the collection cup huh.

 

Yeah i have the coralife skimmer and once it was broken in its pretty consisten with the output. Sometimes i mess with the flow control to get more skimmate but I've never had it "go crazy". I don't run it 24/7 though. I turn it off when I add phytoplankton and sometimes at night when I'm watching TV cause the skimmer is noisy. There's nothing wrong with turning it off for a little while when you add something to the tank. As far as the collection cup you can dump it in the toilet or sink or whatever, but yeah obviously you don't want it running back into the tank.

 

I'm with Covey in assuming it is externally caused. It can be almost anything. Some of the frozen coral food I use can set my skimmer off till it is processed. Good thing you have it where it can over flow without harm. It is always a good idea.

 

Just to rule it out, check your venturi for salt creep.

 

Skimmer Foam

I have a Red Sea counter current type HOB skimmer and if I accidentally push it down too far into the tank it will foam a lot more than normal. I don't THINK that the venturi types would do the same thing but hey... you never know.

Ray