Skimmer change of behavior....why?

rbarr110

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My tank is still pretty young, only had livestock in it for about 4 months. I have an Aquamaxx FC-180 skimmer for my 125 gallon tank. It was working well until this weekend when I screwed up a little with some programming of my Apex.

I had just installed my AFS auto feeder and was set up for once a day feeding using its default code. Since my tank is young and low stock, I wanted to make it feed every other day and was editing code. I was simulating code for automatic feeding using temporary "fake" virtual outlets. I was working on it in my office which is upstairs and away from the tank and somehow my "fake" outlets were triggering the auto feeder. I ended up dumping A LOT of pellets in the tank. Once I discovered this, I quickly vacuumed out the majority of the pellets and changed the filter socks.

I also found that my skimmer was overflowing. I turned off the skimmer while I vacuumed up the excess food. Turned the skimmer back on and the foam was not rising up very far. I had to make serious adjustments to get the foam up. After about 12 hours I had to readjust as the skimate was too wet. I turned it back to level it used to be set up before the feeder accident. However, the foam isn't rising up like it used to.

Is this a result of the water surface tension being affected by the excess food? Is the water too oily from the food? I had just done a large water change before the food accident and it is looking like I need to do another. Any thoughts?
 

cromag27

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needs time to adjust after the mishap. skimmers remove docs and you basically “polluted” your water when you over fed. give it time to settle back in.
 

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