Berlin Turbo Protein Skimmer

[mr. wai]

Hi all,
I have a 55g, but the cup is never full. How do I tune it up? There are bubbles coming up, but the cup only gets 1/5 full every other week.
I do have a lot of fishes and corals.
Thanks for your advice in advance.
Wai

 

[soulsigma]

IMO your skimmer is functioning properly, it's pulling out what you have. Meaning that since you don't have a large bio-load you won't have a large amount of skim gue.
One of the expert will chime in soon and give you some tips and tricks, but in the mean time please post more info so that the experts can quickly assist you. They will want to know how long has your tank been set-up, what type of fish and corals do you currently have and how many, how long have you had your skimmer, what method of filtration are you using and have you done anything differently outside of your regular tank husbandry.
Post the above data so you can get quick advice.

 

[mr. wai]

Thank you.
I have my 55g for about 3 years now and had the skimmer ever since.
equipment: T5, UV, 1/3 hp chiller, wet/dry with bioballs, and berlin tubo.
Crushed coral and lots of live rocks. My readings are all normal and I do a 10% change weekly. Sand bed cleaning once a month.
5 Percular clown
1 medium Hippo Tang
1 Mystery Wrasse
1 Lemonpeel angel
1 sixline wrasse
1 six-inch lone engineer goby
(5 inch Longnose Hawk just passed away)
1 Bubble tip anemone
3 feather dusters
1 coco worm
blue spotted mushrooms
(new) greenstar polyps
1 yellow leather
1 (new) frogspawn with 4 heads
1 bubble coral
1 Montipora
1 xenia stone with many heads
2 chile coral (but not opened for several weeks... might have died?)
1 (new) chaeto ball
I hope this helps.
Thank you very much.
Best regards,
Wai.

 

[sea n life]

why do you have a chiller with t-5 do you just not run the air in the summer?

 

[fishieness]

How dry are you skimming? Depending on your system, you could definitely get more than that, but not necessarily. If you skim dry, or have a lot of build-up on the neck and riser, you aren't going to really get any skimmate. Do you usually have increased skimming once the cup and neck are cleaned? If so, you can try to skim a little wetter or just clean it more. If not, then that is probably how much the skimmer can do on your system.

 

[nigerbang]

If its a Red Sea Berlin its doing all it can do.. they are terrible skimmers and no better than seaclones..

 

[fishieness]

I've used one at work and have been impressed with it for what the old berlins did. The new NW turbo isn't great, but it's not horrid. Still a few levels above a seaclone, IME.