My completely worthless DIY Skimmer

Sorry after I thought about it a while, I figured you meant Fresh mixed Saltwater.

J

 

Hi guys. ater more than a week, my skimmer started filling the collection cup with green water. It seems like foam is not always present all the way up. Sometime is fills and starts spilling into the cup and 30 minutes later the foam level goes down again. Is this normal? Anyways, seems to be better now. Thanks all for your thoughts.

 

sounds like a water surge from the feed pump to the skimmer or not enough internal skimmer ventilation.

 

Guru, could you ellaborate a little more on this? I have no clue what you mean. Thanks.

 

a vacuum doesnt allow the water to flow may cause it to pulse. the vacuum may be an air pocket, an overly sealed system, and so on if you get the idea. if the skimmer is built to the point that it cant breathe internally, this may happen. sounds odd doesnt it. basically the in/out flow should have no restrictions. if the inlet or outlet are placed in different areas the results will be different. hope you understand. your skimmer is set up almost the same as an euro-reef with the excpeption of the needle wheel. so i dont see why it wont work. just throwing the idea out there.

 

further thought: the diameter of the lines used will also create this effect and give a false impression of internal flow within the skimmer. if the drain line has a bend or elbow this will limit the speed and amount the skimmer is allowed to dispense. welcome to the world of engineering.

 

Thanks for the thoughts Guru. My skimmer finally is starting to skim as it should. I believe that being a relatively new tank setup (3 months) there was not much to skim anyways. Heres a Pic of it performing:



This is my fuge-to-be and my sump, where my skimmer is located:



And one of my tank (no corals yet, just base rock):

 

glad to see dirty water. do you have a drain outlet in the skimmer cup? if so leave it closed until you need to drain the cup and connect a hose to a milk jug from it. do you get bubbles back to the tank? the inlet hose has a bend in it, that may or may not cause a problem in the future. does the light above the skimmer grow algae in the skimmer? thats one big pincushion you have there.

 

Yeah, (not so) worthless after all. I do have a drain from the cup which is always open. I will close it and just open it when needed. I'n not getting micro bubbles back into the tank. This weekend I will try to eliminate the bend in the inlet hose. The lighting used above the skimmer are leds. I don't really know if this light will stimultae algae growth. The pincushion was a gift from my roomie. It is huge and I am planning on trading it for something smaller. I can't imagine the ammount of toxin this guy will release if he died.

 

when you straighten out that hose, the flow will change in the skimmer. youll have to adjust it, again.