Red Sea Protien Skimmer w.surface cup?

808smokey

808smokey

Member
Hi,
I've had a red sea prism protein skimmer for over a year now and I have no complaints. The other day I bought the surface skimmer attachment for it since the surface always had an oil slick on it :mad: Well for the life of me I can't get it to work right. I have it to slow and it doesn't "Skim" the surface. If I have it to high it empties the cup to fast and sucks in air. It also fills the waste tank in under 5 minutes. I can't seem to find a happy medium. Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?? The only "New" part is the cup everything else has a been used for a year+
Thanks
 
6stokes

6stokes

Member
I have the exact set up as you, but I don't have any problems. I can't imagine the cup running dry unless you have it positioned too high up the tube. The water level should be just below the top edge of the cup. That should keep it from running dry. As far as finding your happy medium, take a look at the chamber that the foam rises in and eventually goes over the top into the collection cup. Adjust the foaming action to be about 1/4 to 1/2 the way up that chamber. The nasty stuff will eventually build on top of this foaming action and fall over the top into the cup. The fluid collected in the cup should be pretty thick and dark in color, not thin and yellow looking. Thin and yellow is an indication you have it turned up too high. It will take some patience to get it just right and then check the foaming level for the next couple of days. If it stays put, you good to go. One other thing that can give you grief. Any time you have started or stoped the skimmer or it ran dry, you need to pinch off the air hose for a few seconds to get all the air out of the pick-up tube. That will help to give you consistent skimming.
 
6stokes

6stokes

Member
No problem, guess I should have also mentioned to make sure your air hose is pluged into the right port. One of them is blocked and serves the same purpose as pinching off the air hose as I explained in the previous post. It should not be pluged into the blocked port.
 
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