Bubble Magus 5 Air Valve

[pandry15]

So i turned on my skimmer today - tank has been up and running for 8 days. I've read enough ahead of time and wasn't surprised to see it going crazy with the overflow. I guess I'm in a break-in period. I opened the water flow to max as most suggested and it still overflows. There is a valve (more like a clamp) on the airline that if I tighten it down it restricts the air, by doing this I can keep the bubbles at a level inside the skimmer - now it's right about the bottom of the cup, but by doing this I see that there are bubbles escaping from the bottom of the skimmer. So valve opened means skimmer overflows, valve closed a bit means bubbles out the bottom.

Bubble Magus 5 sitting in 8 inches of water.

My question is during a break-in period is it better to keep the airline totally open and just let it over-flow or should I try to keep the airline restricted to keep the level correct (this means bubbles out of the bottom of the skimmer)?

Hope this makes sense to someone - first time skimmer owner here!

 

[pandry15]

So I have set the waterflow to max and the airflow wide open and am letting it foam over currently (I have to drain on the collection cup going right back into the sump). If I raise the skimmer about 1.5-2" it seems to operate normally. Since everything is brand new I decided to let it operate for a few days before I raise it, Seems like the consensus is break-in period is about 2 weeks to a month.