Micro-bubble Problem

I've had my tank set up and fully running for 3 days now. I am getting very tiny micro bubbles in the DT. I'm not really sure where they are coming from.

I've attached a picture of the tank (not sure how well you can see the bubbles) they are small. Another picture of my sump and how the water feeds down into it and then a picture of my skimmer?

Is the way i'm bringing the water into the sump my issue? It's a 3/4" pipe with a bunch of 3/16" holes drilled into it. Before I just had the pipe going right into and under the water but it was making "gulping" noises...

Looking into the return pump compartment there are very few bubbles so that's why i'm confused as to where they are coming from.....

 

My guess is from what I think I see in the picture is you don't have a bubble trap, so those bubbles are being shredded into tinier ones by the return pump.

 

Do I need to add another baffle to the left of the two that I already have? I shined a light in the return compartment and I see very few bubbles so that's what i'm confused.

 

Try this....

That filter pad that you have over the first baffle. Move that down into the water in betwen the 2 baffles so that there is no water DROP after the pad that may cause some bubbles.

Do you see any bubbles in your return section?

I agree that you should have another baffle next to the return, but it may not be absolute that this is your problem right now. I am also not a fan of the filter pad in the baffle area if that thing gets clogged for any reason you may have an issue with overflow of the sump.

If moving the pad down (only temp) does not stop the bubbles, then you may want to check all your connections after your return that are out of the water. Try to listen to them very closely and see if you can hear a slight hissing noise. Sometimes when joints are not connected properly it may suck air (it will not leak water, but suck air). That will cause tiny microbubbles in the DT.

 

I will try this out and see what happens. I've also thought if I lowered the pipe where the water is coming into the sump to the water level maybe that will help because it comes in and creates a lot of bubbles. I see very few bubbles in the return compartment and i've looked closely where the water returns to the tank and I don't see bubbles coming out there (but there are millions in my tank). I know I have a small leak off a T on the return line feeding my BRS Carbon/GFO reactor. I get about a drop of water every 2 hours out of it. I've got everything shut down and i'm going to seal it up after work and possibly drop the supply pipe in the sump.

 

Use a filtersock for the drain coming into the sump. That will get rid of the bubbles from that.

Depending on where the leak is that you are talking about. Is that run off of your main pump? If that leak is somewhere betwen the main pump and the DT then it could be the prob

 

I can't seem to get rid of these darn micro bubbles!! Since my tank has been set up i've cut the hard plumbing for the supply down into the sump because a snail got stuck in it. Then I decided to cut the plumbing for the return to the tank because the check valve failed and I wanted to get maximum flow out of my pump. Let me say, this pump I have is powerful now. I have a lot of flow coming down into the sump now.

I have one fitting that is above the water level. Its a threaded 90 that came with my deep blue reef ready tank. I have a mail barbed fitting screwed into it with teflon tape and a 3/4" flex tube attached to it.

Could this be where the bubbles are coming from? I wrapped the threads a good 3 or 4 times.