My skimmer just went mad!

My Seaclone 150 skimmer has been running just fine for over 6 months and all of a sudden it went MAD :bouncylau

All of a sudden all foam, filled the cup in 5 minutes with water, foam pouring out the vent hole.
If I open the air valve more that just a crack it goes mad.
Just did a 10G (15%) water change the day before,but it seemed fine until about 30 hours or so later
Any Ideas what might cause that?


Mike

 

Wow. No specific ideas. I have a Seaclone 100 myself. Run it for a day or two without any air and see if it calms down. Did you add any chemicals to the water? Some treatments and supplements will make the skimmer bubble like mad.

 

have you added anything to the tank, chemicals or slime coat? Those are the usual things that make a skimmer over skim.

 

I have a theory I would like to bounce off everyone. I have lost 3 fish since my skimmer started going mad. :-[ My Pink Anthias, my Royal Gramma, and this morning my Scissortail Goby. I was having problems getting the Anthias to eat, so on the 19th I bought some vitamin enriched brine shrimp to give him. Three days later my skimmer went mad and I have lost the three fish. Coincidence or could I have gotten bad shrimp? I am feeding flakes today until I can get some fresh fomula one cubes tomorrow.

What do you think?

Mike

 

This happen to me once. I had treated my tank for red slime. A few days later I cleaned off some rock and my skimmer went crazy foaming and water all over the place. Did you treat your tank within the last week, then cleaned it?

 

No, only a 15% (10 gal) water change with RO/DI & Oceanic salt (which I have been using for 4 months), and the food change.

Mike

 

hmmm...did u add anything to the tank right before this happend? i know that sometimes ph buffers and algae removers can cause this

 

nope, no buffers. only salt & water. tank parameters are fine except for nitrate is a little high (almost 20 before the water change). I also just noticed that some of my chaeto is a little soft and mushy instead of springy like it normally is? Is it time for an emergency evacuation before I lose anything else?

Mike

 

Did you put bare hands in the water? Maybe you touch something and didn't wash you hands?

 

That is the only other thing I could think of. I normally wash before and after working on the tank. I suppose it is possible I did not get all of the soap off of my hands, but it was two days after the water change and I had not been in the tank since then. I have cautioned my wife about using aerosols in the area of the tank. At this point, I am going to crank up my old hang on filter with a ton of carbon in it and do some more water changes.

Mike