Skimming question

I recently moved everything from a 56 gallon to a 72 bow and have an octopus 160 in the sump. I used all new water in the new tank. It has been set up for about two weeks now and i barely have any skimmate...the simmer looks to be running great and producing thick white foam all the way to the top of the cup but just no skimmate! Could it really be my water is just that good or is something else up?

 

Could be a lot of things really.

Can you post a pic of where your bubble head column comes up to in the collection neck?

Might just not be adjusted right . . .

 

In addition to adjustment, as M-Ocean Man mentioned, there are a number of reasons, some of the more likely are:

-Salinity low. How are you testing specific gravity? Is it around 1.026?

- Clean water. If you added a lot of new water, it's likely low in organics and will take a while for levels to build up.

- New equipment. Adding a lot of new pumps etc... could release a lot of oils into the water, which can inhibit skimmate production.

So, if some of these are the case, it dosn't seem unreasonable, but should start getting progressively better.

 

I will get a picture tomorrow but it looks like it should be good to me, the bubbles come almost to the top.
My salinity is at 1.025

 

Thats after i just emptied the collection cup, maybe half inch of skimmate for two weeks..

 

you can turn your gatevalve clockwise to bring that bubble column up. I would bring it so that the top of the "normal" or "average" bubble column is 2" from the top of the collection neck. Right now looks like you are almost 6" below - that would mean only once in a blue moon would your bubble column rise high enough to kick some scum into your cup which is why you had so little skimmate after so long. . . .

 

Ok I will do that. I was told to have the water line at the bottom of the collection cup, so that's how I set it

 

It will be different for each person, each system, each skimmer - even the day of the week might see a different behavior from the skimmer.

 

Skimmers have a lot in common with some of the girls I used to date.

 

hahahaha nice one