HELP WITH AIR BUBBLES -

[Harpo]

Hi Everyone,

My friend has a Nanocube 28HQI and seems to have alot of air bubbles in the water. We think it maybe from the original Skimmer....does anyone else have the same issue and if so...how did you fix it. Does she need the the skimmer since she is running the tank as FOWLR?

Any help would be excellent!

Thank you....

[skabooya]

From what i have red about these particular tanks. It is quite common for the skimmer to be shooting bubbles for the first while after startup. It goes away after it has been going for a couple of weeks. For those skimmers that didnt stop shooting bubbles they had to be tinkered with, lowering or raising them or some part of them slightly and then left alone for a few days to see if it helped at all.

[Harpo]

Thank you!!

[jd949]

Also check the water level in both return chambers. The water goes down the middle chamber, out each side at the bottom, back up over a baffle then down to the return pumps. If the water level is low, the water going over the baffle towards the return pumps will fall like a water fall creating air bubbles that get sucked in by the return pump and set into the tank.

Hope that makes some sort of sense.

I don't run a skimmer on mine. I have an intank media basket in the center chamber with chemi-pure, purigen and filter floss. switched the return pumps to maxi-jet 1200's, with one running through a 1/10hp chiller. I also have an mp-10 in the tank. I have 2 clowns, damsel, watchman goby, pistol shrimp, skunk cleaner shrimp, plus hermit crabs, various snails and 1 starfish. SPS, LPS, softies, zoo, etc.

I do water changes once a week (maybe once every 1.5-2 weeks if I am lazy) and have no issues with water clarity or quality. Unless she has a big bioload, the skimmer is more a personal preference. From my experience, most of the small airstone skimmers for nano tanks are a waste of money. They pull very watery skimmate at best, and are far too finicky to be consistant. The slightest water level change and either the collection cup is full of water or not skimming anything at all.

Just my $0.02

If you want a small skimmer, search some of the other posts around here on what they used, or you could check out nano-reef.com. They have a bit more info on nano specific tanks.

Jon

[makana]

jd949, what size water changes are you doing.

I found that I couldn't keep my nitrates down with weekly water changes. I also found that the stock skimmer did nothing of value. The skimmer I have now also returns micro bubles so I run the sponge on that side of the return to filter them out. I just clean keep it clean and swap it out for a dry one every now and again to keep it from becoming a problem.

[jd949]

Normally I do about 4-5 gal water change per week. I've never had an issue with nitrates, always at 0. I would try and find the source of the nitrates and work from there. Even if I go 2 weeks without a water change I still have no detectable nitrates. I change my filter floss every 2-3 days too.

Are you using anything other then just the skimmer for filtration?

[makana]

I'm changing 3 gal a week. I change the filter floss twice a week. I have roughly 30lbs of live rock. I have run carbon, purigen, and phosguard off and on.