Skimmer problem

I have a reef octopus skimmer that has been running for about 6-8 months now.With out a problem. I just did a water change and now my skimmer is overflowing. Water level is the same its always been. The only thing that has changed is I added a 900 gpm power head to move some more water because of stagnant spots. Will that head effect my sump though? I am relatively new to this like i said before 6-8 months into this now. I did run some chemiclean to get rid of the red cyano bacteria i had also, prior to the water change. I tried readjusting my skimmer and it still overflowed no matter what i did. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

I assume the pump flow is being controlled and your not pumping all of that water into the skimmer? they are rated for certain pump flow rates and if you exceed that then they will just fill your collection cup with water.

if the skimmer has the correct amount of water flow through it then

could be related to the chemi clean
it could also be related to substances in the new salt mix
do you use tap water ? as substances in the local water supply could also do this (water softening agents would make a skimmer go crazy)

basically the chemistry of the water has changed with something akin to a water softening agent or chemical being in place and the skimmer goes on overtime collecting what mostly looks like seawater from your aquarium

do not pour these back into your tank as if you do you just prolong the experience
after a few cup fulls of clear water, when most of these agents have been removed from the aquarium, the skimmer should settle down again

it has happened to me occasionally after using certain additives in my set up (cannot remember which ones have caused it to be honest, I just remember experiencing it)
but within 24 hours the skimmers ( Deltec and now Reef Octopus) have gone back to behaving normally

Steve

 

Thanks Steve, I do use RO water for all changes. and the power head is in the tank and the skimmer is in the sump so it should not be getting any more water that usual. (I dont think?) The only thing I can think of is the chemiclean. I will try and dump as much of the cup as i can i was letting it go back into the tank. It fills the cup and overflows in literally 30 seconds. I have had it sitting off for about 36 hours now so I will give it a go tomarrow. Thankyou very much for your help. I will let you know if it worked

 

Ok, So today I ran and dumped all of the water that filled up my skimmer. about 3 gallons worth. I gave up on letting the skimmer run and dumping it. I had sat there for about 2 hours. I am pretty low on water in my sump now and am currently making water. I decided that I am going to just do another water change and see what that does. I ran my skimmer in a tub of water and set it at the same depth. and the skimmer performed fine. It must have been the chemiclean. Im hoping another water change will fix this problem. Ill keep you posted

 

sounds like a good plan Trickyd12

never had an issue that resulted in that much water being poured away probably a litre and a half maximum was all it took last time it occured for me, and I recall each cup taking a little longer than the previous cup to fill up, so I knew it was gradually reducing whatever was in the aquarium causing it

that does seem like an excessive quantity of water to lose so I think you will be better doing the water change in order to reduce the issue

Steve

 

Hey sorry its been so long since i last posted. Things got hectic around the holidays. So i ended up doing the water change. a took another 15 gallons out and put 15 gallons fresh RO water in after mixing salt of course. I am still having the problem with the skimmer. This was all done about a week ago. So i changed the filter sock and put a brand new one in. I checked it yesterday and still having the same foaming water problem. I am going to mix another 15 gal tomarrow and see what that does. on a good note with week and a half water changes my corals are doing very well with out the protein skimmer and i have no algae at all on any of my rocks??... Do you have any ideas or anything else i can try.

 

As Steve mentioned, if nothing changed and your RO/DI water is reading 0 TDS (or close to that), it could be the salt mix. For example, I've been using RC saltmix for years with no issue...but I had something similar happen to me with the last batch of salt I purchased, there was lots of foam in the sump and the skimmer kept overflowing with foam....I fixed that problem by getting a new batch of salt from a different store.

Is your skimmer overflowing with foam or mostly plain almost clear water with not much bubbles? If it's very foamy, I'm guessing it's either something in your RO water or your saltmix.

If it's less foam and more plain water, you might want to check the air line intake on your skimmer, sometimes the valve gets restricted by calcium buildup letting less air and more water into the skimmer resulting in overflow.

Good luck.

 

Protein skimmer problem has been fixed. It just took multiple water changes. I think it took me about 4 -15 gal changes to fix the problem. and I bought some water from the fish store.