Protein skimmer overflowing..

Hey all..
For the second time now my protein skimmer has filled up and over-ran it's resevoir.... consequently shorting out my power strip and stopping all water flow in my tank.

Now, I am in the process of re-organizing the new power strip where I can utilize a drip-loop type of set up , but that doesn't help me wjith why they over filled in the first place.

I have a CU-75 hang on type, and a bakpak hang on.
Both have performed flawlessly for several weeks with the exception of filling and spilling salt water into my electric strip.

Is this one of those stupid moments on my part (other than not having the drip loop) ? Have I over looked something?

 

I don't know how much this is going to help, but I had the same problem with a Red Sea Prizm skimmer: one day it was going fine and the next day it had overflowed. I had to jack the flow way down and, after a lot of tweaking I finally got it to go again. I don't know why it happened, maybe some sort of change in thw water's ionic-chemical compsition or something fancy like that.

So I guess my suggestion to you is turn down the flow and see what happens.

 

What color is your skimmate normally, without the overflowage. How easily can you see through the colletion cup when it is not going crazy and overflowing?

PS: That is a massive MASSIVE problem with your electrical strip. The life of your tank and your own may be at risk. Please fix it right away!

 

I find that dosing my tank with vitamins and additives makes my prizm skimmer go from a white sticky foam to big watery bubbles. The big watery bubbles come out and fill up my resevoir in like 30 min. So now, I turn off my skimmer when dosing and dont turn it back on for 24 hours.

 

I also have a prizm. You don't have to turn off your skimmer, just lower the water level in the skimmer. I don't have any problems with vitamins and additives but did overflow twice this year.

Jamaica Sun, try putting your power strip on the wall. The first time that I had a flood my power strip got wet and damage. Now I have it on my wall. When my skimmer overflow my power strip did not get wet at all.

 

+1 on that !!

The first rule with any piece of electrical equipment you buy for your tank (and it seems to be printed on the very first page of every manual for this equipment is the DRIP LOOP).

It is imperative you look into this and re-wire all your cords accordingly .... PLEASE.