Is it even worth getting this skimmer wet?

[Philipgonzales3]

Honestly I can't see the crack.



Oh wait... it was on the other side haha. I knew that!

 

[Philipgonzales3]

This is after 11 hours. Seemed super easy to dial in. I like to skim a little wet so this is likely already good to go at this setting. My SCA-301 would be consistent once I got it dialed in, but if you barely breathed on the adjustment tube the thing would need adjustment again. Seems that the Simplicity skimmer is much easier to dial in.

I was a bit worried I would have a small issue since my water line in my sump is 6.5 inches and the recommended height is 7-9 inches. This is the water line in which the return section can drop and the other sections can stay constant, so I believe this is the "designed" height of the sump. Doesn't seem like it is going to be a problem. I was able to easily overflow the cup by adjusting the pipe on the skimmer up all the way.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

I forgot to mention I also emailed Simplicity this morning. I noticed when setting it up the skimmer was missing one of the rubber feet.

I had the skimmer broken down and sitting in several junk boxes. My thinking is it could have easily fell off in several boxes and an initial search didn't yield any results and I am not about to start searching like crazy for the little foot.

When I was changing out my filter sock it had a little bit of wobble when I bumped it so I picked it up and looked at the bottom and noticed one foot missing.

I noticed there is a manual and a part number for the feet. I googled the part number and found nothing. I checked simplicities site and didn't see anything about ordering parts, so I shot them an email.

They sent back a nice email and said if I would send them my address, they would send me a pack of feet for free.

 

[Why-Me]

You've gotta be like this today

 

[Philipgonzales3]

You've gotta be like this today

Actually my allergies are kicking my butt. I did my water changes today, some testing, rerouting of the cables, cleaned and mopped the house... we are moving in 7 days, I'm going to go look at some new houses tomorrow also...I honestly just want to keel over.... lol.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Hmm... Maybe I jinxed myself with how easy this thing was to dial in.

So yesterday around lunchtime give or take, I emptied the collection cup.

I was happy with the initial production and figured it was a little too much on the wet side as I don't want to be producing a full cup of skim mate a day.



I turned down the skimmer a tad. Still had a nice little foam head and said OK let's see what happens from here.



I woke up this morning and had a look and the level inside the skimmer had dropped to below the neck. No biggie, just likely needs to be adjusted up yeah? Well I noticed no matter what I did I could not get it to produce any foam. I said well it foamed up right away on day one. So I took out the toothbrush and cleaned the cup and neck off.

I went about my day and came back home to no skim mate. Started tinkering, removing the air screw, tightening the air screw all the way, and everything in between. Same with the water adjustment tube and pump speed.



So now I am left with more questions than answers.

Maybe I don't have any organics left to skim? I find this unlikely. I feed half a cube per day to six fish. Food every hardly seems to hit the sand but I doubt there isn't some organics in the water.

Why did it produce such good foam on day 1?

Do used skimmers need to break in? I assume they at least need to build up a film, but then back to question 1 lol.

Maybe the manufacture is correct that it needs to be in at least 7" of water as it is now in 6.5" of water. I guess this would make sense since if it could run at 6.5" optimally then why wouldn't they have said so.

So I can temporarily get my water line to 7.0" but evaporation will cause it to fall over time. I evap about 32 to 64 ounces every 12 hours, this is how often I top off.

Auto top off is in the works but I'm moving this upcoming Friday so will need to get through that first.

What should I do until then? Any suggestions?

 

[Retro Reefer]

I would just give it some time, it looks like you may be driving the water a little to far up the skimmer neck from the picture, I would set it a little lower for a dryer skim and give it a few days.. mine will periodically stop producing foam from a multitude of things including just sticking my hand in the tank also If you have fluctuations in the water level of your skimmer section even just a small amount it’s going to cause problems.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

I would just give it some time, it looks like you may be driving the water a little to far up the skimmer neck from the picture, I would set it a little lower for a dryer skim and give it a few days.. mine will periodically stop producing foam from a multitude of things including just sticking my hand in the tank also If you have fluctuations in the water level of your skimmer section even just a small amount it’s going to cause problems.

Well it looks like it was just me being impatient as usual!

Foam appears to be coming back.

A couple of things that threw me.

How easily and abundant it produced foam within minutes at first.

No skim mate today.

I'm running below the manufacter recommended water line by half an inch.


The bad thing is I did two things.

I added some pellets to the water. Pretty much none hit the floor. Wanted to make sure my Goby is getting enough food so made sure he ate a couple of pellets.

I did add a little bit of top off water that did raise the water like 1/16 of an inch. Maybe an 1/8th. This is just a guesstimate as I didn't measure before.

So @Retro Reefer you think my water level being at 6.5" is OK and not an issue?

I can keep it steady by ensuring the return section of my sump does not exceed it's section to the point of raising other levels in the sump. When I get an ATO I may leave it here or I may raise the water height a little based on what is recommended.

I assume since water is making it to the top of the cup my water level being .5" lower than the manufacter recommended I am OK?

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Also

@Retro Reefer

You mentioned lowering my water level.

I drew a line to where I think the water stops and foam starts more or less. I'll probably let it fill up the cup again and then try to adjust a tiny bit down until it's a little dryer.

Should work right?

 

[Hemmdog]

Well it looks like it was just me being impatient as usual!

Foam appears to be coming back.

A couple of things that threw me.

How easily and abundant it produced foam within minutes at first.

No skim mate today.

I'm running below the manufacter recommended water line by half an inch.


The bad thing is I did two things.

I added some pellets to the water. Pretty much none hit the floor. Wanted to make sure my Goby is getting enough food so made sure he ate a couple of pellets.

I did add a little bit of top off water that did raise the water like 1/16 of an inch. Maybe an 1/8th. This is just a guesstimate as I didn't measure before.

So @Retro Reefer you think my water level being at 6.5" is OK and not an issue?

I can keep it steady by ensuring the return section of my sump does not exceed it's section to the point of raising other levels in the sump. When I get an ATO I may leave it here or I may raise the water height a little based on what is recommended.

I assume since water is making it to the top of the cup my water level being .5" lower than the manufacter recommended I am OK?

Yea your fine man. Just give it time to build up, my new one took 3 days to start making really good skim. Try not to wet skim to much.

 

[Retro Reefer]

I think your fine at 6.5”.. on my particular skimmer I run the water level up to just under the cup so quite a bit lower than yours.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Yea your fine man. Just give it time to build up, my new one took 3 days to start making really good skim. Try not to wet skim to much.

I think your fine at 6.5”.. on my particular skimmer I run the water level up to just under the cup so quite a bit lower than yours.

Ok, so sounds like I need to lower it a bit. I guess I'm afraid to set it too low and end up with 0 skim mate.

Oh yeah! Look at that beautiful foam coming back slowly but surely.

The ironic thing is my fiancee says I don't comment her enough and here I am calling this literal bubble of fish poo beautiful. Must be why she doesn't like the tank lol.



Hmm so should I lower the level now or wait until it starts overflowing a little?

 

[Philipgonzales3]

It actually looks like the water level is dropping by itself. I'm not going to touch it at this point. I'll double check it tomorrow.

Sweet, I'm back in the foam business. I like it a lot!

 

[Why-Me]

I like it a lot!

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Egg-xactly!

 

[Philipgonzales3]

@Retro Reefer

It looks like you were exactly right about having the water level too high inside the skimmer.

Woke up this morning and the cup was overflowing from the holes on top of the lid. Skimmate was mostly clear, so I just pulled the drain on the bottom of the cup and let that go back into the sump. Put the drain cap back on and verified it was filling up very quickly.

Turned it down to make the water level at the base of the cup. Will leave it be until tonight and have another look. So far still very impressed with the foam. I don't recall ever getting foam that looked like this on my SCA. Could have been user error but I think I would have eventually been able to stumble upon some foam. I also like that this skimmer doesn't throw off a ridiculous amount of micro bubbles like the SCA. The water for the most part looks clear all around the skimmer. With the SCA, good look seeing your skimmer through the micro bubbles lol.


Any idea on the size hose that would fit around the drain on the cup? That is one thing I liked about the SCA skimmer is that it had a hose with a rubber stopper on the end. I could pull the stopper out of the hose and drain into a cup and then put the stopper back on the hose. To me that is easier than removing the cup. Then the cup only would need to come off when you need to do a deep cleaning.



Looks like the bubbles are getting larger and larger as they go up the neck. From my understanding this is closer to what it should look like than I had it before .

 

[Retro Reefer]

Looks like your getting it sorted and appears to be working like a champ from the pictures.. no idea what size hose you would need but I agree being able to drain the cup occasionally is nice. Mine has a little valve on the hose that simplifies draining.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

I took the drain stopper piece with me to home depot.

Turns out it is 3/8 ID and 1/2 OD. Was a pretty tight fit going on the drain nipple.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Been skimming a little wet. Working on getting it dialed in. Still pretty happy to producing some nice tea so easily.

Taste a little on the bitter side though...

 

[Hemmdog]

Been skimming a little wet. Working on getting it dialed in. Still pretty happy to producing some nice tea so easily.

Taste a little on the bitter side though...

Dial her back a little bit more. Your clowns need to heal. Don’t strip the water to hardcore just yet. On my build thread I posted a pic of my skimmer cup last night. It was blackkkk lol.