Protein skimmer woes! please help me!

mouse03245

mouse03245

Member
Ok,I bought a prizm skimmer last saturday,we have a 55 gal. and all tests are at O except nitrate which is finally at 20ppms. My problem is my cup has more water than scum in it. I have the valve on low to almost closed,but the past 2 days the water in it is slightly yellow with just a very little scum on the rim. I just cant seem to adjust the valve good enough. The instructions that the skimmer came with said it should be just about fully open.But when it is fully open there are lots and lots of air bubbles and cup fills w/water real fast, when its closed it just about stops flowing. Am I doing something wrong? Any ideas would be appreciated
 
reefnut

reefnut

Active Member
Not sure really. I have one on my 55g and I'm not very impressed... all I can think of is the air hose. Are you hooking the air hose into the collection cup?? If so try leaving it disconnected and see what happens.
 
B

billb

Guest
It takes a little fussing to figuge out the adjument on those things..they do work though. I found that the large adjustment/flow knob was kind of a pain and hard to be acurate with. My solution was to put a little airline adjustment knob right in the hose. It works great for fine tuning those things and is a real cheap fix. Here is a photo of it. I never had any problems adjusting it after I made this mod.
Good Luck
Bill
 
smarls

smarls

Member
I have a prizm pro on my tank (waste of space personally) but they do take a while to break-in. Maybe a few weeks.
Also, I find that for tuning it, if I have the water intake at roughly a 45 degree angle, with the air intake all the way open, then what I do is slowly close down the asir intake until the bubble line inside the skimmer is at the level I want.
HTH
Stewart
 
nikolai

nikolai

Member
I finally figured out a nice angle for my valve.... needless to say, it is working great now. My skimmer has TONS of gunk in it (A good thing) and is only 1/2 full after 3 days. Yippee!
Before, I didn't know that I was supposed to change the airhose, so it wasn't doing anything. lol
 
mouse03245

mouse03245

Member
Nikolai....what did u mean about changing the airhose? how did u find out about that? im just getting very discouraged with the whole thing.Thought i had the valve just perfect last night and then i get up this am and cup is full of water,it was yellow water.
And Snarls....how the heck did u get you intake at 45 deg angle? Did u change the intake or what? I dont mean to be a pain but im getting very confused!!!!
 
smarls

smarls

Member
The water intake valve has a knob on top...I keep that at about 45 degrees. I also adjust the air intake, which is a twisting know ontop of the air intake.
Make more sense?
Stewart
 
mouse03245

mouse03245

Member
Yes, it does make sense now. (maybe cuz its the middle of the day now!) I did that and I also took billb's advise and went and bought an air control valve to put on,but I cut the air tube too short so I used a different one without the valve.The tube was thicker and things seem to have gotten better. The only thing I see wrong now is the water trickles out now slower instead of an even flow,but I guess more tinkering with the valve will fix that. I just want to say thanx to all of you that have given me input on this.
 
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