Power head causing chaos!

PhishFriends

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I added a small power head to my 2 year old 50gal yesterday to blow behind my rock work.
I always thought I had good flow in my tank and no obvious dead spots, but that proving to be wrong. Since adding the power head my skimmer is constantly overflowing. I currently have a bucket under the overflow hose and the sound of water is almost constant.
My filter socks aren't really junking up to fast and the water looks crystal clear after one day.
My question to you guys is do you think something's up with my skimmer, or does it track that I stirred up some pollution in the backside of my tank.
This was all started because I was starting to get some spot of cyano on my sand.. I will probably keep the pump there going forward seeing how much waste got stuck back there.

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Reefering1

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Keep monitoring. It's also possible the powehead is pushing water down the overflow, raising water level in skimmer chamber of sump
 

Waters

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I don't think stirring up detritus would make your skimmer overflow......anything else been dosed to the tank? I would keep an eye on the bucket though....emptying skimmer overflow into anything outside the tank can quickly turn into an empty tank lol.
 

Mr. Mojo Rising

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I think your skimmer is doing its job and sounds like the tank really needed flow if that much detritus was kicked up. Before doing water changes I will usually take a turkey baster and blow my rocks out, then vacuum that detritus out.
 

WalkerLoves_TheOcean

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Skimmer will start overflowing if you have added something to the tank water, as in like chemicals or if you dosed something new recently.

Your power head should not be causing that at all.
 
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PhishFriends

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I did a fluconazole treatment a month or so ago, but have been running my skimmer with no issues for since then and my rock is bare clean.
I did have cyano showing it's ugly head when I put the power head in, and I'm wondering if it's stirred into the water column..
Other than that I haven't added anything to the tank.
I did clean my whole skimmer out yesterday, and I thought that might be the use, but then when I poured new salt water in the sump to top it off, the skimmer stopped flooding making me think that it actually is the tank water... Stumped
 

WalkerLoves_TheOcean

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I did a fluconazole treatment a month or so ago, but have been running my skimmer with no issues for since then and my rock is bare clean.
I did have cyano showing it's ugly head when I put the power head in, and I'm wondering if it's stirred into the water column..
Other than that I haven't added anything to the tank.
I did clean my whole skimmer out yesterday, and I thought that might be the use, but then when I poured new salt water in the sump to top it off, the skimmer stopped flooding making me think that it actually is the tank water... Stumped
Did you deep clean the entire thing?

Skimmers make a protein coating that helps it skim more, and helps it prevent air bubble leakage.

If you got rid of that protein coating, then you are basically breaking in your skimmer again, which will cause it to not skim and overflow for a while.
 
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PhishFriends

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I did a fluconazole treatment a month or so ago, but have been running my skimmer with no issues for since then and my rock is bare clean.
I did have cyano showing it's ugly head when I put the power head in, and I'm wondering if it's stirred into the water column..
Other than that I haven't added anything to the tank.
I did clean my whole skimmer out yesterday, and I thought that might be the use, but then when I poured new salt water in the sump to top it off, the skimmer stopped flooding making me think that it actually is the tank water.
Did you deep clean the entire thing?

Skimmers make a protein coating that helps it skim more, and helps it prevent air bubble leakage.

If you got rid of that protein coating, then you are basically breaking in your skimmer again, which will cause it to not skim and overflow for a while.
I didn't clean the bottom.
I disassembled the whole rig and cleaned out some junk in the pump and my airline had a clog.
I just got home from work and turned the skimmer back on. It over flowed for 10 minutes and now has stopped. I ran a fine filter today to try and clean things out a bit.. I'm unsure what happened, but everything seems to have leveled out again.
I'll try turning that power head on for the second day and see what comes from that.
 

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