Large skimmer not working properly

I dunno what happened but for days the thing was operating beautifully. Its a 5 foot Downdraft SKimmer and its all of a sudden not producing the fowm it was. I mean the difference is dramatic and I cant figure out why. Its like the Air mix got messed up. When before the reaction chamber and riser tube was completely opaque with a frothy mix of bubbles now its more water colorerd with large bubbles blasting up through it. All I did was take the U-tube/venturi component down to clean it. Now something is screwed. I dismantled what I could to reach down into the box base and felt around. I thought maybe a bio ball had clogged up something but theres not enough space for that to happen.

Well its working now. As soon as I put boosted the alkalinity the reaction chamber was white again. Almost immediately after the buffer was introduced the skimmer changed from a watery texture with some large bubbles to tiny bubbles and foam.
Is that normal? For a low alk to cause skimmer probs?

 

never heard of that....coincidence???? Dude what the hell are you running a 5 ft beast skimmer on????

 

lol it came with a 240 gallon setup i bought a couple weeks ago. PResently its on my 75 gallon reef. Its working again, maybe its coincidence but i dont really care at this point. Ever since I put that crap rock from that guys tank in my reef its been a slow and depressing decline. 3 weeks ago the tank and all my fish were the picture of health. For 6 months it was a thriving ecosystem. In the past 2 weeks 5 fish have died the 5 remaining fish are all sick accept for my Copperband B. I tried to battle ich with the Herbtana stuff and it basically accellerated the crash. How can a medicine tell you to shut down your protien skimmer for 10 days like its no big deal. The whole time Im thiking this just aint right, the skimmer is the backbone of every reef. But I waited it out for 5, 6 7 days and on the 8th day after numerous fish died I said forget it and turned the skimmer back on. This Downdraft skimmer pulled out about 3 gallons of brown water. The compromised conditions due to mounting organics damn near crashed everything. Stressed all the fish out and now my beloved Blue Xenia colony is dying.

I never thought Id say this but I wish I could just sell it all off. Im so depressed about all the money Ive wasted and all my fish and corals that have died and are about to die. I just got a job working in a reef store and im ready to quit. I take responsibility for putting that nasty rock in the tank and for crowding my tank, which probably made it absolutely crucial that everything go as it should. And it did for many months. But that @#$%^ Herbtana and its instructions to just "switch off your protien skimmer for 10 days", like its nothing to worry about.... its just a protien skimmer... not important at all!!

Sorry for the rambling folks. I figure i did all my babbling on this boring malfuctioning skimmer thread so hopefully it wont get too many views. I cant believe a hobby has cracked my contentment and caused such melancholy, its ridiculous.

 

Dude. I feel ya. Dont give up, it happens to all of us at one point or another. I never lost a fish in the first 8 months, not one. Then all of the sudden, I lost the last 4 I tried to add. My community just would not accept any newcomers. Then I lost 2 or 3 and my beloved Powder Brown. He was my first REAL fish. I since added a masked rabbit and he went straight to my mushroom rock and cleaned it off completely. Good part is he is in the tank 2 weeks now and still alive. I started to question my tank. I then got a wicked hair algae bloom, and almost gave up and tore it down. I am glad I didnt. The tank now looks better than ever, and is thriving!! Hang in there!!!