Coralife Protein Skimmer Help

[jackri]

My Skimmer, rated for 125g, just started acting up. It won't micro bubble to produce any skimmate after doing a great job. Skimmer is probably 2 years old... my temporary fix is I have an airline pumping bubbles into it making the microbubbles as once I blow the line clear its fine... for a few seconds and water backs up the line right away. Blowing or clearing the line has always worked before this.
My question.. anyone have experience with this? I'm thinking the airline needs to be replaced, I cleaned everything I could but just won't suck in the air it needs to produce bubbles.
I can't really explain any better but if you have one I'm sure you know what I'm talking about -- any ideas?

 

[05xrunner]

have you added anything to the tank...sometimes additives will cause Micro bubbles to stop and it just fills with water.

 

[jackri]

No not at the time. Unplugged it to clean it and went to plug it back in to no avail... I'm wondering if the air line is getting old and gummy. That's my next step but with having sick baby/sick wife ... AND my overflow flowing into my carpet instead of the sump I've been a little too busy to change that line and just ran an airline into it instead.
Yes... my topoff water line fell out of the sump and proceded to dump 4 gallons of pure (thank goodness) water into the carpet which hearing a sucking sound at 3am up with a crying baby is the last thing you want to hear.... ran down.. tank was full... sump was full... I'm like where did all the water come from? Theres the topoff bucket bone dry sucking air trying to fill the sump a smidge and me standing in wet carpet.
Oh well top that off with sick family, wife's cell phone vibrating off a shelf into a water glass and shorting out its been a fun week

 

[veni vidi vici]

Check the venturi intake on the pump,mine was always clogging up.I uses a 1/8 drill bit to clean it out.

 

[jackri]

I'll have to look at that... I cleaned the pump but didn't look as closely at that part as I maybe should have. I did replace the airline tube last night and it helped... produced bubbles all night.. but this morning had stopped... but restarted easy. Thinking I'll check that and shorten my airline tube as well.

 

[veni vidi vici]

Can you blow through the silencer?some times that gets clogged with salt as well.If it is clogged you can run warm water through it.

 

[jackri]

you can easily blow through it... it just back up the airline with water a bit and stops the micro bubbles... dunno if the old airline tube was getting hard and leaking a bit past it or not, ill have to double check it when I get home again.

 

[gmann1139]

Originally Posted by Veni Vidi Vici
http:///forum/post/2954616
Check the venturi intake on the pump,mine was always clogging up.I uses a 1/8 drill bit to clean it out.
I had the same problem with another skimmer. Turns out they sent a 'key' to fit in there to clean it out, but I'd lost it.
And V^3, I assume you want to qualify your statement with using the drill bit, but not the drill?

 

[caz2022]

Originally Posted by Veni Vidi Vici
http:///forum/post/2954616
Check the venturi intake on the pump,mine was always clogging up.I uses a 1/8 drill bit to clean it out.
thats the only thing iv ever had to do-just part of routine cleaning

 

[jackri]

So far its been working good... still need to shorten my air line I think.. but since it's been working I've been working on building my frag tank instead, sump is almost all sealed ready for a leak check.. about to order the pump and power heads and probably run electricity to the room tonight/tomorrow.