remora problems

well I finally took my skimmer out and gave it a clean...it wasn't dirty at all and the propeller for the ph was fine. I am so mad...the microbubbles are not minimal at all, my tank is a bubble haven. But I did notice while cleaning that the black clips that hold the tube to the powerhead were loose and I was wondering if this may have caused the problem. When I first got the skimmer it was working pretty good for such a low bioload and I only had a few small amount of microbubbles. This has been going on for a month now. I shut the skimmer off and voila no microbubbles. So do u guys think that the clips being a little loose would have caused an air leak therefore lots of bubbles and little skimmate?