Skimmer seems to be working great..EXCEPT...

55g reef (not yet)
Sealife Sys AP 60 wet/dry
Sea Clone 100 skimmer
2 Koralia 1s
2 damsels
1 anemone
25 lbs LR
approx 50 lbs Aprox. 50 lbs aragonite

Tank has been health and running for about two months now. Nothing out of the ordinary, and quality lighting is soon to come.

Skimmer (SeaClone yada yada yada it's mine now) produces any mixture I aim for easily, but here is my concern. Even when the chamber is filled with miniscule microbubbles, something is failing in driving the foam toward the collection cup. If I stand there and manually cap off and release the air line with my thumb with 1-2 second intervals, I can drive small ammounts of skimmate into the cup, but obviously, this is ridiculous...I just wanted to see if there indeed was waste to be collected. It is a very small amount, but in the expert's opinions, is the bio load just to small right now?

Thanks for your help.

 

you should be able to adjust the valve in a little bit more. most skimmers have a hose with a valve you can fine tune.

 

It has the line with the valve, and like I said, I can physically get the skimmer to produce waste for the collection cup by almost "priming" the skimmer. It has been running for about 6 weeks and was new when purchased. FRUSTRATION is setting in!

 

Frustrated !! You can turn your small valve down and then adjust your main valve up a bit. most pumps have to be submerged at a certain depth to work properly. Is it in a sump? Or does it hang on back of tank?

 

Anything to skim?

Do you have anything to skim ? You said 55g (not yet) as if the tank was in the initial stages. Do you have anything in the tank? Has it cycled yet?

 

it hangs on the back and the pump is fixed to the J/s tube so it is at a fixed depth......really dumb question now......reefer, what do you mean by the main valve, as far as I know I can only adjust the small valve at the end of the air line? Thanks bob, nick

 

guttierez, yeah, there is small amounts of waste I have collected manually, but read the OP and you will see the lengths I went to, just as you suggested, to see if there was anything to take out. Thanks man, n

 

Sorry, there are so many skimmers. i looked it up and I had one when I first started in fish. i usually save my old skimmers and equipment. But I threw this in the trash. but that is the only way to adjust the water height. Mine NEVER skimmed worth a crap. You may as well accept the loss and buy something better. Sorry, You can buy a CPR backpack and it works pretty good or a coral life. they are good for the money. I have over $5k in my tank and still use my $150 coral life skimmer. havent had to upgrade yet for about 3 years.

 

When I purchased my tank, it came with a Sea Clone 100. When used as a hang on the back skimmer, I have found it to be only barley usable, but when used in-sump, it performs much better.

The first thing I did was to follow the recommendations for modifying it: SeaClone Modifications, and went one step further and modified the impeller of the maxi jet (drilled it full of holes)...

Now when used in-sump, it will actually skim...but even still not good enough to suit me...so it was replaced by the Aqua-C, now there's a good skimmer for those with a sump and room to house it....

 

I'm surprised that nobody has said this, but if your tank is only 2 months old, get that anemone out of your tank ASAP. It will not survive a tank cycle and it will bring your system back to square 1 and wipe everything out when it dies. See if you can take it back and get a credit or something. Anemones need to be in a very established and stable tank system to survive.