Reef Octo questions

I got a Reef Octopus Xtreme 160 yesterday and have it all hooked up. I have a few questions though. First, I heard these have to "break-in" before it starts producing skimmate. How long is the break in? My model has the Gate valve, do I just set it at the max? Also as water comes out of the gate valve it hits water and is kinda loud. Is there way way to muffle that?

 

they should start producing skimmate within a few hrs, my reef octopus did great after 3 hours of running, i ran it at the minimum at first then once i saw it start to get really frothee i just adjusted it and havent had to readjust it since, as far as the noise, i still havent found anything to minimize mine yet either, i was going to tie a filter sock to the end of it

 

hmm mine has been running since 10am... do you stop the visible water at the line? i mean there is only like 2 inches of head on it now...

 

i went over it about an 1" its easier to see if you take a flashlight and put it up to the body of the skimmer, thats the easiest way ive found, they test the units a few times before they ship, so they are pretty clean when they arrive

 

I have the ext 200 with psk1000 pump, if your talking about the water flow noise I bought a elbow and returned it into the sump below the 9" water level it sits in. I think I bought a 2-1/2 elbow and ground it out to fit over the metric gate valve. That works for me anyway.

 

I have an octo as well and lets see if I can describe how I got the return to quiet down. I turned the outlet until it was facing the main body of the skimmer and then stuck a piece of filter floss in between the outlet and the body of the skimmer only covering about half of the outlet though. This allowed for a mostly unrestricted flow out of the skimmer but blocked enough of it that it quieted down. Make sense?

 

The skimmer itself is quiet. Its as the water leaves the gate valve and it splashes agains the water. I guess i'll get a pvc elbow...