Skimmer Over Flow

[MarkoD]

I just checked my skimmer this morning and it overflowed. skimmer cup was full of water, and entire sump was filled with white foamy bubbles on the surface.

literally looks like bubble bath.

nothing has been dosed in the past few days except Kalk through the ATO

checked it last night before bed and it was doing fine.

anyone know what causes a skimmer to go randomly crazy?

[DAVE]

Funny, I just had the same thing happen to me the other day. I have no idea what happened.

What skimmer are you using?

[MarkoD]

Vertex in250

In about 8 inches of water

[wingedfish]

I just spent a week drying an area rug do to a skimmer. My problem was lack of maintenance. Haven't pulled and cleaned the skimmer in months and the needle wheel was collecting snails. I guess some came loose.

You may never find what caused it. Skimmers are very unpredictable. This is the reason for my lack of maintenance, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" it was working so well!

[reefgirl189]

It must be skimmer week because the same thing happened to me. Mine was working fine and I was thinking to myself what a great job I did tuning it (haha!) Then, bam, overflow. No one had touched it in 4 days since the last cleaning either. Luckily I caught it before all the skimmate went back in the tank. I'm still not sure what happened as nothing had changed.

[DAVE]

You are lucky. Unfortunately all of my skimmate (about 10 days worth) made it back into the tank.

It has happened to me a few times now, there is nothing I can really do about it. When I am home I empty the cup every few days just in case, but since I have been gone for the past 2 weeks I didn't get a chance.

Hopefully the sps will be fine, it has happened in the past with no real ill effects (I do have about 400g of water though). When I get back home Thursday I will just do a bigger then normal water change.

Mine is a Vertex Alpha Kone 300.

[Maverick00]

once again, same thing happen to me with the vertex In-100. I suspect mine was lack of maintenance as well.

[MarkoD]

My skimmer is a month and half old. I doubt there's maintence I need to do.

And someone please don't say is breaking in. It's not

[Lampshade]

I had a snail die in my tank that caused it. It was a big snail, but I guess it put off some nasty stuff, because my skimmer went from a very dry skim to overflowing until I pulled the snail out the next day.

[Palmer]

In my short 2 year history of having protein skimmers my only thoughts are-

- Your skimmer is fairly new so the composition of the skimmer changes as film etc build up and I found I had to dial my skimmer in more often in the beginning when first getting it.

- Also I had this happen when I either slightly repositioned the skimmer and caused a slight crimp in the air line or when I ended up getting some salt creep into the airline.

Hope you solve the problem!

Palmer

[Aquattro]

- Your skimmer is fairly new so the composition of the skimmer changes as film etc build up and I found I had to dial my skimmer in more often in the beginning when first getting it.


Is that the long version of "it's breaking in"? :razz:

[Palmer]

Is that the long version of "it's breaking in"? :razz:

lol... I was going to say "It's just simmerin a bit let er alone" but remembered where I was.

[Reef Pilot]

I have Vertex IN-280, and I notice that any restriction in the air line (like inadvertantly putting your hand on the top cap hole) causes it to quickly overflow.

[MarkoD]

There's nothing blocking the air intake.

It didn't overflow with water, it overflowed with bubbles that filled my sump like foam. It literally looks like a bubble bath. :S

[Reef Pilot]

Well, maybe you have the water set too high in your skimmer. Open it up a bit. Mine usually produces more bubbles and foam after a water change, and I have to be sure my water level is not too high or it will overflow.

I think outside air pressure affects water levels in the skimmer, too. Was it a high pressure day?

Or whatever you were dosing might have affected it....

Some skimmer mysteries just remain so....

[Hiab422]

Well if you have little kids look for dish soap.:razz:
Just kidding

[MarkoD]

I don't have little kids.

[Hiab422]

Ok mine did the same thing once and i have never been able to figure out why but it has not done it again?.

[ScubaSteve]

I've always attributed it to something that changes the surface tension of water. Cyclopeeze and garlic extra can cause my skimmer to go bananas like that, even hours after feeding. I've even found that the mucus caused by some corals (namely a leather) can cause the skimmer to overflow.

I'll poke through my aquaculture engineering book in the skimmer section to figure out why they do this. I've been curious as well.

[Sumfingwong]

When my skimmer goes crazy, its because I put in a new filter sock. It also went crazy when I put a AQ filter sponge into the sump to seed it.

[kien]

I have had the same experience with my skimmer (Bubble magus 220CS). For the first year that I owned it I found that it did this at least once or twice a month and sometimes once a week! It was extremely frustrating and I think I posted about it a couple of years ago. I was about to throw the skimmer in the recycling bin and get a new one because I was so PO'ed. Then I got busy and ignored it for a while. Fast forward a year and I came to realize that a year had passed without it bubbling over once. Then I further realized that for the past year I had stopped using filter socks. Incidentally, I just started to use filter socks again last week to try and clear up my water column and guess what??? Yup, my skimmer cup overflowed last week :lol:

The strange thing is that it doesn't do it all the time or with every filter sock change, just with some. I clean my filter socks in the washing machine without any detergent. I suspect in my case what is happening is periodically there is detergent or residue that gets onto the socks perhaps because the previous load of laundry was too full or not full enough, thus not allowing a complete rinse from the rinse cycle. Keep in mind also that it may not be a specific chemical, but rather a certain chemical composition. Perhaps filter sock changes the ionic balance of the water in some way?

So now what I do is dial the skimmer down whenever I put a new filter sock on. I can usually dial it back up within 24 hours. I don't like using filter socks though so long term I won't be using them. I typically just put them on for a couple of days if I've just done some major scrubbing of the glass or rocks.

Anyway, this may not be what's happening with your skimmer but it definitely affects mine.

The other thing that will cause your skimmer to overflow is new epoxy. Although I suspect you'd know right away if this was the case, which it doesn't sound like.

At the end of the day there are a lot of chemicals that can cause your skimmer to overflow like the two I listed above. There may be a tonne of others that you introduce from food sources, your hand (hand lotions, soap, etc). Perhaps a weeks worth of putting your hand into the tank with a certain soap or oils from our skin allows your tank to accumulate enough chemicals to cause your skimmer to go bonkers.

[mike31154]

I was thinking along the same lines as ReefPilot in that ambient air pressure may be one contributing factor. If you think about how a liquid barometer works, our skimmers are not that different, a large tube filled with a column of water. Any ambient air pressure change, will have a small effect on water level. Perhaps more so in some skimmers than others. I've noticed that whenever I put my hand or arm in the display for whatever reason, the skimmer quickly produces less useful foam, so the little bit of oil on my skin is all it takes I guess. I therefore assume that the opposite could also be true if even a small amount of whatever causes more foam somehow is introduced into the tank. Not sure if pH would affect skimmer performance, but might be worth researching since many of us have pH swings between lights on & lights out.

Funny, I've read a lot over the years how finicky & maintenance intensive a counter current, wooden air diffuser skimmer can be to dial in, but I rarely have to touch the valve controlling water column height on mine. The only time it has ever overflowed is when I've inadvertently closed that valve a bit too much, keeping the water column too high. Starting to really appreciate some of the pros of this older technology since I do little to no maintenance on it, (DIY air diffuser every 3-4 months). It's quiet & between the small powerhead moving water & the air pump driving the air diffuser, it uses very little power. If anything, it's more likely to underflow than overflow. This is definitely a pro in my case, since it's a hang on display skimmer, & any major overflow would end up all over the floor. I have a drain line to a 2L bottle & an empty salt bucket sitting underneath the skimmer for a little added insurance.

These are older photos of my skimmer. I now run a larger air pump to drive the king size DIY air diffuser that I change out every few months.

https://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pgy26AD6LDw_WRkrna2iUdrQFKQk1v60m-tBC8uWoBvjZQRjtxASX3tstwvCyGwr8qGeW747d9uLIgJPq0KZ sag/P1010815c.JPG?psid=1 https://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1p9nkXz_gD3CSvMwLBY963mJU_SaMnxTZJEIj5FKhaGv8VICd 1KMy8u1NdQ6zUru1-dpYwKVKbqYRu9jq70XCHQg/P1010867b.JPG?psid=1