Greetings Fellow Reefers!
I have had 2 skimmer overflows now on 2 different occasions inside of 10 days. I have a Waterbox Reefer 100.3 with the standard sump. The first time this happened I noticed the foul rotten egg smell when I got home from work. After I open the cabinet I saw a full skimmer cup spitting and spewing foam all over the inside. I shut it down checked everything over and chalked it up as maybe something getting caught up in there. I couldn't really see anything wrong. I opened the return valve until the foam was low in the skimmer and decided to just go with a drier skimmate to avoid the issue again. I did a 75% water change to make sure I got as much of the pollutants out as I could. The coral and fish didn't really respond, so crisis averted.
Last night about 7pm I changed both filter socks. It was overdue and both sock chambers were to the top with water. Around 8pm my daughter complained of a rotten egg smell when she came downstairs. Sure enough, I go to the skimmer and its foaming over again. The only thing that changed was maybe an additional 4-5 cups of water dropped from the sock chamber and slightly raised the sump level. AHHHHHH!
The only thing I can guess is causing this is that the output pipe on my reef octopus skimmer just comes above the surface. Maybe this little bit of water pushed it above the skimmer pipe and added backpressure? Has this happened to anyone else? I can't keep doing 75% water changes. I took the skimmer apart last night, cleaned it and found nothing wrong with it. It's a Reef Octopus Classic 150INT and about 1 year old. This has never happened before.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,
JOe
I have had 2 skimmer overflows now on 2 different occasions inside of 10 days. I have a Waterbox Reefer 100.3 with the standard sump. The first time this happened I noticed the foul rotten egg smell when I got home from work. After I open the cabinet I saw a full skimmer cup spitting and spewing foam all over the inside. I shut it down checked everything over and chalked it up as maybe something getting caught up in there. I couldn't really see anything wrong. I opened the return valve until the foam was low in the skimmer and decided to just go with a drier skimmate to avoid the issue again. I did a 75% water change to make sure I got as much of the pollutants out as I could. The coral and fish didn't really respond, so crisis averted.
Last night about 7pm I changed both filter socks. It was overdue and both sock chambers were to the top with water. Around 8pm my daughter complained of a rotten egg smell when she came downstairs. Sure enough, I go to the skimmer and its foaming over again. The only thing that changed was maybe an additional 4-5 cups of water dropped from the sock chamber and slightly raised the sump level. AHHHHHH!
The only thing I can guess is causing this is that the output pipe on my reef octopus skimmer just comes above the surface. Maybe this little bit of water pushed it above the skimmer pipe and added backpressure? Has this happened to anyone else? I can't keep doing 75% water changes. I took the skimmer apart last night, cleaned it and found nothing wrong with it. It's a Reef Octopus Classic 150INT and about 1 year old. This has never happened before.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,
JOe
