Skimmer Help

I bought my first skimmer 2 weeks ago. Cyclone 100 ...I know its not the best, but its certainly doing something ...just not sure if its the correct "something". It took a week for the skimmer to produce anything. Instead of the typical "dirty foam", its producing green water ...the picture shows what it has collected in its first 2 weeks. Is this good or ...? My airflow is just as it should be, no airpockets in the intake ...and a good strong "tornado" in the skimmer. Help :-/

 

I'm not really familiar with that brand/model of skimmer. That whisp of bubbles looks a bit inadequate. In most skimmers, the entire column is chock-full of a solid cross-section of foam.

Also, you are wet skimming. This is the scenario resulting from having the bubbles break very close to the top of the collection cup. If you back the bubble column down a bit, less bubbles will rise into the collection cup, less skimmate will be produced, but it will be far more concentrated than what you're getting right now.

HTH.

 

I would take everything apart and clean the air intake section. As Reefsparky said the chamber should be full of bubbles

 

Hmmm ...I apologize ...Im a bit confused. I backed off the skimmer air intake ...it lowered the water level in the skimmer 1/4" and decreased the bubbles. I increased air intake and bubbles filled the entire top half of the chamber below the collection cup. Perhaps this will help ...? Or ...perhaps this isnt a quality skimmer.

 

I did some searching and here's what your skimmer should like like if it's producing bubbles correctly.



As for the height of the bubble column, over time you can adjust it to your preference. Wet skimming removes more liquid from your tank, and the skimmate is dilute. Dry skimming (lower bubble column) removes less skimmate, but it's far darker and concentrated.

 

it looks very much like my old jebo in how its made i always ran it with the foam/air bubbles adjusted to the bottom of the collection cup and always got dark green/black sludge.


it should get this dark and may take longer then a week to really brake in good.
and i did never use the foam pre filter on it either filtering it before it went into the protein skimmer never made much sense to me. :-/