Microbubbles

Well this past weekend I upgraded from a 55 non drilled tank to a 65 gal drilled. It has a built in overflow with a proclear 75 wet dry and a mag 12 return pump. The system has not been used in over a year and the first day after the sand settled I noticed microbubbles coming out of all the return heads. I raised the water level, added more bio balls to stop the splashing, and added micron filter pad thinking that it was excess dirt floating around. As of today I still have microbubbles and its driving me crazy, please help!!!

 

Is there a lot of bends from the sump pipe to return pump?? Sometimes powerful pumps can suck water too quickly and it will create microbubles. I forgot what the exact scientific term for it is.

 

The return flexible hosing from the tank to the sump is in a shape of an L maybe borderline S. Tonight I had enough and turned the return valves down to slow the return water and the microbubbles all but disappeared. I am wondering though by closing down the return pipes I will burn up the pump. Also the water level in the tank went from very high and no movement (film was building up on the surface) to drop right at the built in overflow (cascading).

 

Ok I remember what it is called now. Cavitation Cavitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I am going to send you a link to one of my posts on another forum Micro Bubbles HELP PLEASE (New Setup) - Saltwaterfish.com Message Boards

I had to constantly turn down the pump to remove all the micro bubbles. What I ended up doing is getting rid of my pump (it was too noisy anyway) and replacing it will a submerge-able pump and running a straight pipe to return. No micro bubbles ever since.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the info, which makes complete sense. I turned down the return pipe and the splashing in the filter box has gone away and everything is running much quieter. The only microbubbles I see are some that form on two small areas of live rock that have some red slime on them.