microbubbles from hangon skimmer...

how can i get rid of them? when i first started running the skimmer, i thought because it was new, i would have microbubbles until the break-in period was over (24-72hrs)... and then, up until a couple of days ago, i still had them.... but for the past day or 2 my skimmer has been off (lots of evap, water flowing from the bubble diffuser was too loud to sleep through)... since i've turned off the skimmer, the bubbles have quit (well duh, its where the bubbles were coming from)... anyway, without the bubbles, my tank looks so much better... my question now, is this: when i turn my skimmer back on, how can i eliminate the bubbles? i setup everything exactly as the instruction book said, but its still killing me! by the way, i have a coralife super skimmer 125 hanging on my 55gallon... i've got the white pad in the bottom of the diffuser, and the black foam pad with the hole in it on top of that.. but it just doesn't seem to do any good... i think one problem i have is the flexible tube going from the skimmer to the diffuser, was cut too short when i was setting it up... should that tube reach all the way down until its reaching the white pad? i think the instructions said something about it should only go an inch into the diffuser... i really don't understand how a diffuser works anyway... i understand what its supposed to do in theory (remove microbubbles before they enter the aquarium), but HOW??? also, if that tube IS too short, where can i find a replacement? i'm thinking some plumbing place might have it, but what they have may be too thick and rigid to turn down into the diffuser...

 

well the diffuser assembly is adjustable you should toy around with that for a while I have no micro bubbles at all so maybe I got lucky but the thing does look damn annoying but it does serve its purpose.

 

well, a bit of good news... i moved both of the filter pad thing-a-ma-jigs up as high as they could go in the diffuser box, which allowed my tube (which i still think i cut too short) to stick further down into that hole in the black pad.... it helped a pretty good bit... still have the bubbles, but not as bad.. plus, when i started the skimmer back up, it seemed to take a lot longer for the diffuser to fill up than it had in the past... oh yeah, another thing that could have been causing it is that the box wasn't level (kind of impossible with the way the rim is around my tank)... but i stuck it into the corner as much as possible, and put my skimmer outlet tube (the part that the flexible hose connects to) directly over it, and it helps it stay level, so maybe that helped as well...

 

probabaly a lil different
but my proteen skimmer hangs of the side of my tank and i find i get alot of small bubbles coming out of the skimmer when the water lvl in the tank is low because the water has to fall and takes air down with it into the tank, i found that if i adjust my water lvl acording to the skimmer i dont have a problem with bubles goin everywhere if my water lvl is right i dont get anybubbles.

might not be yer problem, just throwin it out there

- jamie