Skimmer keeps overflowing!

[STiTCH87]

Not sure why my skimmer is always overflowing lately. Overflows the whole cup within a minute if not quicker. I know it's been off for awhile so the water I thought was maybe just real dirty, but that's not it cuz I did a 50% water change today and still the same issue. I tried crimping the airline alittle to see if that would help and it slightly did, made it take an extra like 10 seconds to fully overflow. No clue what's up with it. It had been broken in and up and running perfectly for nearly half a year with the regular monthly cleaning and never gave me even one issue until now.

Any ideas of what could be wrong and how to remedy the issue?

 

[delta]

Doing any painting or anything like that? Epoxying corals? treating with red slime remover or chemi clean?

Did the, valve, cup or stand pipe get adjusted by accident?

Start feeding frozen food?

 

[STiTCH87]

I've always fed frozen for the life of my tank, though when I heard that could cause a skimmer to act up, I haven't for the past 2 weeks (fish aren't happy about it though) and have done a 25% and 50% WC since to no avail. Aside from that, nothing changed. No glueing or epoxying, and the skimmer cup was at first where it's always been. Now I have it up as high as it can go without it falling out or leaking and still the same issues. I've also tried holding the skimmer at various depths to see if the intake tube possibly needed to be higher/lower for some reason.

So far, nothing has helped and I just can't seem to put my finger on what the issue truly is.

EDIT: I'm thinking about filling a bucket with hot water and running in it that for about an hour and then placing it into a bucket of old SW from a waterchange and running it in there constantly until it "breaks in" once again. Think it's a good idea? I figure that way if it overflows, it'll just overflow into the bucket. That was what I was trying to do last week before I broke the outlet tube off, which has since been reattached with WeldOn #16 and is leak free. Man that stuff is amazing. So yeah would running it in those two steps likely fix the issue?

 

[JayM]

I would check your venturi on the air intake to make sure it is not restricted with salt, and I would also look over the connection for your 'broken/repaired' outlet tube to make sure it is not acting as a restriction for water exiting the skimmer.

 

[cstmpprl]

How's your salinity? My ETTS wont bubble and skim properly if my salinity is to low....

 

[ScottyD]

My buddy when cleaning his skimmer broke a piece without noticing and it kept over flowing even though he set everything the same. Look for anything broken and all the suggestions made by others!! Good luck!

 

[STiTCH87]

Air line is not restricted and has in fact been cleaned along with everything else in the skimmer. The whole thing is perfectly clean. Salinity is 1.026 like always. Double checked the outlet tube and it is aligned perfectly, absolutely no restriction there. Also did a twice-over of the skimmer and have not discovered any broken parts at all.

I'm so stumped. Maybe I cleaned it too well and it'll have to re-break-in?

 

[JayM]

not likely on the break-in. Is there another reefr nearby who could take a look? a second set of eyes can do miracles

 

[STiTCH87]

Is it possible that the water in my DT is simply too dirty?

Because I ran the skimmer in freshwater in a bucket, and it created zero bubbles and ran fine as it should in freshwater since there's no salts or waste. I don't have any clean saltwater to test it in yet, but when I put it back on my DT, it once again overflowed. I am thinking about getting a 5 gallon bucket of fresh clean saltwater tomorrow and running it in that and seeing if it overflows still. That way i'll know if it is due to my tank water being extremely dirty. I mean it HAS been an entire month of no skimmer, even though i've done two 5g water changes within the 4-5 weeks.

EDIT: There's plenty of local reefers nearby me. Dunno if any would be willing to take a look. Maybe Mike (Yanni) would let me bring it to his pizza shop to see if it works fine on his tank there. Or maybe Greg at Underwater World could take a look at it if I brought it there?

 

[JayM]

I can't say much about the skimmer you run, but if you run ANY skimmer in fresh water, it won't run correctly, so that is a bad comparison.

have you looked at the impeller, or internals in the pump?

 

[dcforester1]

Mine has been overflowing to??? I NEVER had a problem with it and it has over flowed 3 times in the last 2 weeks. I am not sure whats causing it, but I am taking it out and cleaning it this weekend. I had a problem with my biopellets coming out of my reactor, I dont know why that happened and I think the mulm from it has something to do with it.

Good Luck Derek

 

[JayM]

^ organics from a probiotics reactor could cause a skimmer to overflow as well, as Derek suggests.

Are you saying that no matter what settings you set, the skimmer overflows?

 

[dcforester1]

Mine was set real low, but I think I hav alot of junk floating around in my sump.

 

[STiTCH87]

Well I have no sump, nor do I have a filter, nor do I dose anything, nor do I feed frozen (at the moment) and I have lowered and raised water level, moved the skimmer to various areas of the tank, adjusted flow directions and strengths, adjusted the outlet, adjusted the air intake, and all gave the exact same results, Not even a slight difference.

 

[Dekon]

My skimmer started to do this me(PM Redline 150). I took it apart and cleaned it, no change. Took it apart again and saw nothing. Then I took it apart for the third time and discovered where the air line enters into pump there was a build up of what I thought was salt. It wasn't salt, it turned out to be a calcium build up that was blocking to air flow into the skimmer. Cleaned that out and it has been fine ever since. You just have to check it, like Jay said, sometimes a second set of eyes really helps.

 

[STiTCH87]

Well I can hear the airline sucking air very strongly like usual. But hey, why not take everything apart again just incase right? I will tomorrow night and then update you guys.

 

[jazzsam]

The same thing happened to me and I had to do VERY close inspection to find salt had corroded on me on the intake.

 

[Bobbofin]

Is this a HOB skimmer? Maybe a Coralife? Those will overflow at a drop of a hat for no reason at all. I had one ONCE!

 

[STiTCH87]

Sorry, didn't mention skimmer type. It's in my signature though.

It's an AquaMaxx HOB-1 Skimmer. Never overflowed before this.

Didn't have time tonight, but tomorrow night i'm going to re-disassemble everything and inspect it all and re-clean it all then retry it.

 

[STiTCH87]

I did some interesting research tonight.

I disassembled the entire skimmer once again and recleaned everything, but found nothing, it was indeed already 100% cleaned. So I reassembled it, and then placed it on my 10g tank full of 100% brand new fresh saltwater at the exact same salinity and temp as my DT, which also had the same brand of salts in it. Ran the skimmer, it to my surprise, it ran PERFECTLY! So, excited, and figuring it works now, I put it back on my DT. And once again, I get excited as I watched the skimmer work perfectly, BUT only for around 30 seconds. As soon as all the clean water in the skimmer was fully replaced with the DT water and no longer was a mixture of both, the skimmer overflowed once again just as bad as always.

So, I put it back on the 10g and ran it. Overflowed for around 15 seconds, then ran perfectly. I went back and forth 3 times doing this, and all 3 times gave the same results.

Overflows on the DT, perfection on the 10g. So I thought of another idea. I removed 5g of water from the 10g and put in 5g from my DT. The skimmer didn't exactly overflow bad, but it was overflowing never the less and skimmed bubbles which instantly turned to water.

That's another thing IDK if I mentioned:
The skimmer hasn't been overflowing with water. It overflows with a massive amount of bubbles, which THEN turn into water in the collection cup.

So I am led to believe, that my original theory was correct, and that the water in my DT is indeed so filthy, that my skimmer cannot catch up and operate properly. So tomorrow I am doing a 50% water change on it then running the skimmer and seeing if I have any luck with that. Fingers crossed. The dirty water would explain my immense nussiance algae growth this month too. And what with the skimmer offline, the water has just been getting dirtier by the day and even though two 5g water changes occured within one month, it apparently was not enough to keep the water clean enough for the skimmer to catch up.