Why is my skimmer going nuts?

[The Guy]

Originally Posted by jason604

K u guys r awesome! Moved it up so skimmer is about 8" in water n it now works perfectly!! Barely any noise with egg crates plus it's in my fish room so can't hear in living room. But I will still put some pond liner on it TMR so it's fully silent.

I have a Vertex Omega150 and have it sitting on 6 stacked egg crate pieces, kinda the same as what you have there. It's in 8" of water and works great, I ran it in vinegar mix when new for 24 hours to remove any oils etc. before I put it into operation in the sump.

[jason604]

Ok so I went n bought a vertex omega 150 skimmer put it in 7.5" of water and it's doing the exact same thing as my previous skimmer!!! Either overflowing, come back couple hours n bubbles drop all the way down.. Vice versa. Are the skimmers acting like this because I have no bio load other than super clean rocks and new live sand? My tank is ready for the move but I'm afraid to swap everything from my old tank over till my skimmer problem is fixed. Was thinking about going to buy some fish n try it since I cannot catch any fish in my old tank CUZ they keep hiding in my sps corals

[The Guy]

Originally Posted by jason604

Ok so I went n bought a vertex omega 150 skimmer put it in 7.5" of water and it's doing the exact same thing as my previous skimmer!!! Either overflowing, come back couple hours n bubbles drop all the way down.. Vice versa. Are the skimmers acting like this because I have no bio load other than super clean rocks and new live sand? My tank is ready for the move but I'm afraid to swap everything from my old tank over till my skimmer problem is fixed. Was thinking about going to buy some fish n try it since I cannot catch any fish in my old tank CUZ they keep hiding in my sps corals

Just to get it straight are you using this skimmer in the same sump that's going to be used for the new tank or what? Also is this vertex a new or used one? If new I would vinegar bath it for 24 hours to help with break in.
Sounds to me like you have nothing to skim yet, I never ran a skimmer for at least a couple of weeks after I set up my 90 g and moved all my livestock from my 50 g tank into the 90 and let the load build. Not sure there's a magic set waiting time before you fire up the skimmer, but it worked for me.
Maybe others can chime in.

[jason604]

Yes it's in the sump of my new system. I bought it used but almost new. Gave it a vinegar bath and scrub.

[WarDog]

I just had the exact same learning curve as you. My skimmer was running for one month with no bio-load and didn't seem to be working either. Added 1 damsel, fed twice, and boom... Now its starting to make sludge. Just need to tune it perfectly now.

Give it more time. Your system sounds too new. Once you start adding fish waste into the water you will start to see results, guaranteed.

[dcw1sfu]

I have the Vertex 150 and its a great skimmer however can be touchy at times. If I add anything like epoxy to the system it goes nuts and will continue to overflow for days. I find the way to fix this is let it skim out what it wants by overflowing into a pale and replacing what its drained with fresh salt mix. Basically a water change via skimmer.

[jason604]

Picking up a blue tang and a blue throat trigger today to start the skimmer off. Does any1 have any experience with keeping blue throat triggers? I did some research on them n majority of the people who had them doesn't rly havr a problem with them eating either clean up crews(shrimps, nails, and hermits). I have 4 shrimps n lost of hermits n few snails. Would it be a smart idea to keep this trigger in my tank? They look so cool lol

[jason604]

Ur right Warhog. Been 1 day since I bought two fishes for the new tank and the skimmer is working perfectly right away.