Skimmer issues

New tank setup, but my skimmer is acting strange. It runs fine during the day but as I sleep the collection cup fills with water. 2 nights in a row this has happened. I have made all the necessary adjustments to get the water level where the mgr recommends it and it runs fine all day. Its the Innovative marine skimmer. Thoughts?

 

Do you have any dosing pumps running that may dose the tank at night?

When do you feed the tank?

Where are you setting the bubbles in your skimmer?

Is the water depth the skimmer is in always the same, or does it fluctuate?

You say the skimmer is new...how new?

 

Everything is brand new, like 48 hours old. Not dosing anything, its going through its cycle. I watched IM's video on how to setup the skimmer and it said the set the water level at the neck of the skimmer where the collection cup meets the body, then I dialed in the air to make it bubble just so you can see it bubbling in the tube up through the center of the cup. The water depth should always stay the same as you adjust the depth by moving the body of the skimmer up or down to set it. I set it and left it alone.

 

I am going to try and decrease the water level below the cup and remove the foam sponge on the intake tube, I read somewhere that this will help improve the performance of the skimmer.

 

New skimmers often take awhile to break in and settle down, so give it a week or two just to break in.

Also, once you set the water level (bottom of the throat is fine), you just want to see a bit of froth in the throat for now, as everything needs to run awhile, and your tank doesn't really have anything to skim yet, so if you "force" the skim by over-bubbling, it won't be stable since the tank is far from stable (cycled doesn't equal stable, which comes from maturity).

 

+1 there is nothing to skim yet. There is no need to run the skimmer during the cycle.

 

I'm just trying to get the skimmer broke in, I realize there's nothing to skim. I read some reviews where the IM skimmers water level creeps. I actually had it set perfectly for normal skimmers, so now I will back the level down until I find the sweet spot.

 

So, i dropped the water level in the skimmer to 1.5 inches below the cup and woke up this morning to a mostly full cup of brown nastiness. Theres something in here that needs skimmed because it wasnt just clear aquarium water. I am going to leave it at this setting and watch it for a while.

 

You don't want to skim a new tank while it's establishing the bacteria. What exactly is in this tank right now?

 

Live rock and live sand. I read in numerous places to skim right away to break in the skimmer, is that wrong? Should i turn the skimmer off until i get fish in there?