I found the poo!!! UPDATE W/PICS

I have been slowly losing a battle with GHA. I think that I found the problem. 9 months ago I removed my filter sock. 3 months after that I started to see the GHA.
My sump has 2 sections, the 1st is where my skimmer is and where the water drains down from the DT, the 2nd has the return pump and heater. I started seeing some detritus building up in the return pump section. So I bought a wet/dry vac(worked great lol) to get it out. Then about 2 weeks later it was time to do some peventive maintance on my skimmer. After I removed it I thought I should remove the 6 layers of egg crate under it to see if there was detritus under them.
WW!!! I FOUND THE POO!!! lol
There was alot!
So, the fix was I trimmed the egg crate so that there was none sticking out from under the skimmer. And I added a small PH to each section of the sump. I put them on timers to come on at night after the lights go out.
So now lets see if the GHA recedes. Wish me luck.

 

Nice find i think, lol wish you luck with your battle.

 

Wow indeed a good find sounds like you found the issue good luck.

 

Try building a more appropriate stand. Trimming down the eggcrate wont fix the problem, deterius will still build up, just not as fast.

 

I agree with you on my fix. This should do untill I can think of something else to use that is reef safe, stable, and the right height.
Suggestions anyone?

 

Cut and weld acrylic pieces into a square (or whatever shape your skimmer is) to the proper height.

 

just build a stand out of egg crate. dont stack 6 peices on top of each other becauase that will just trap stuff.
i built a simple box out of it and it seemed to work pretty good.

 

Update! Well I finally got around to making a better stand for my protein skimmer. I had some scrap pieces of acrylic so that's what used. It should not be a place for detritus to build up now. Here is some pictures.
The 1st pic is the build up under the old skimmer stand (egg crate) after 3 weeks.
The 2nd is of the old egg crate stand.
3rd is the new acrylic stand. Capable of full flow underneath.
4th is of the tank one week before I found the build up of detritus.
5th is today 4 weeks later.;D You can see the difference on the overflow and the lower left rock.
Thank you guys and gals for your help I truly appreciate it. As always comments and or suggestions are appreciated.

 

Looks good. I built my skimmer stand out of PVC pipe. Worked great.

 

Not to hijack but I build a similar stand out of egg crate. But, for flow I have 3 pieces of PVC zip tied to the bottom to raise it up. Almost like a raft. The PVC is open without caps. Think this will cause lots of buildup?