Protien Skimmer working in reverse?

[tomato clown]

OK I have read alot of great things about skimmers and to my shock here When I added my new skimmer It seemed to be doing the opposite of the goal. It was pretty much pushing more nitrates into the water and making life miserabe for the fish, my Regal was actually trying to hide deep in the rock. I had it in my 25gal. running at between 40&60gph. (otherwise the tank was a bubble factory itself)
Has this happened to anyone else before, or do I need to let it work for a while before it benifits and runs right?

 

[q]

You don't want to have any bubbles in the tank as a result of the skimmer. Also the skimmer CAN NOT increase nitrates. It has no waste to introduce to the tank so even if it was just hanging there you levels would stay the same. I would look for another reason that the nitrates went up.
What kind of a skimmer is it?

 

[diatom]

Yes were going to need more details...the firdt thing I'd do is do some water changes to get your nitrates down...then I'd go out and get more sand for your tank...you need a minimum of 4 inches for it to be an affective filter.

 

[tomato clown]

The skimmer is a VisaJet-PS with built in power head rated for a 90Gal.
I did a 6gal water change 2 days ago, just finished doing a head count and everyone is accounted for including snails and hermits.
I am thinking that I either have 1 too many fish, or the tomato is stirrin up my sub. more than I expected causing higher readings.
My total in fish is 12-13 inches in the 25...too much? The biggest is the clown @5in.

 

[@knight]

thats quite a lot for a 25 gal tank.
How long has the skimmer been up. Skimmers have a break-in cycle they need to go thru before they become really effective.

 

[tomato clown]

it been up not even a week yet.
My wife agreed that we are going to set up another 29gal. and seperate the fish.
I am going to go with a dsb in the new tank, but can I seed it with some of the aragmite from my 25?
Now if you can bare with me here a few seconds more I have another question....
I am going to put my tomato with my trigger, and the mandarin will be with the blenny and regal as well as all my corals. After reading other posts about aptasia's I noticed an outbreak in my tank. I am thinking about going with either a racoon butterfly or a copper banded butterfly, but I have also read about the peppermint shrimp and nudibranches....what would be best?
Dan

 

[saltshaker]

Dan,
When I first set my 90 up, I had a little skimmer no where near what I needed and it did very little. When I got my redsea berlin it overfoamed and bubbled like crazy sending bubbles back into the tank even with the air flow cut way down. This is what the guys at redsea told me. If a tank is very heavily ladened with organics the skimmer will produce alot of very wet foam and bubble like crazy until the organic load in the water is in check. They said it should take about 2 weeks to settle down and stop sending bubbles back into my tank. Sure enough they were right, almost to the day. I dont know if this is what is going on with yours, but that was my experience of putting a skimmer on a well established tank. It also could be the skimmer you have. I dont know what you have, but not all are created equal, and some do have bubbles in their return water no matter what you do. One thing you can do is get a hang on plastic container like the fish store uses to put fish in when the catch em. drill holes in the bottom of it and put some floss in the bottom over the holes, then let your skimmer outlet empty into this. this will keep the bubbles out of you tank
Buddy
[ November 27, 2001: Message edited by: saltshaker ]

 

[thereefman52]

I would got the your LFS they sell these drops and also tablets, that you drop into your skimmer, and they slowly dissolve over weeks, and help your skimmer collect more crud out of the water

 

[q]

I wouldn't add any chemicals that arien't in the ocean into a reef. For example some phosphate removers can harm corals even though they say they are reef safe. Only a very few coral fit this catigory, but some is too many for me.