Sick of Super Skimmer

[matt819]

I'm sick and tired of waking up to the floor around the corner of my tank soaked because this thing overflowed yet again. Does anyone else have this problem?! I have everything setup perfect...chucked the bubble diffuser, just using a foam pre filter over the output. I used to have water bubbling out of the little hole right before the outlet pipes bends down into the water, just had to plug that. I have the red knob turned all the way shut....still I wake up to a mess...it's probably ruining my sub-floor by now.

 

[chipmaker]

I think what you really need to do is pull the entire skimmer oput of your tank. Clean it all up. Set it off tothe side and get th elatest copy of instructions in front of youo, grab a cold beer or other drink and take yopur time in re-setting it up inthe tank. It has to be somehting your not doing correctly, as there is just too many of them out there in use that work perfectly if they are set up correctly.
You stated you had to block off the air bleed hole on the outlet tube...well thats a sure sign of the discharge end of the tube being submerged into the tank water too far, or being restricted, the pump is submerged too deep in the tank, or yur air silencer has water in it, ot the air inlet line is sucking in water as well, or may be even your needle wheel has junk wrapped around it.....The way thaty bleed

[hr]
is made and on that discharge pipe water has to back uop from the discharage end to be able to enter and push up through that

[hr]
, so odds are you have the discharge end of the outlet to far in to the tanks water level, or your foam sleeve you use for bubble diffusion is clogged up and dirty.....
You know you may think your turing it way down but its not, as that red knob can be pulled up and rotated and pushed back down again. and it will change the shutoff locatin. Set water / bubbles i the reaction chamber to about 1" above red retaiing ring.

 

[matt819]

The end of the tube isn't even into the water sometimes after water evaporates, it's not hardly even in the water at all when it is. I have taken it apart and cleaned it out several times...including the last time when it dripped from the air bleed hole and fried the plug, I installed a new one and cleaned the entire unit. When I do get it all setup and plug it in again, it starts off just like you said, about 1 inch above the red ring, after a day or two, I wake up and my floor is soaked, again. The thing that frustrates me the most is that I will get it all clean and running good, then it only takes a couple days for it to overflow again, it's probably dumping gallons on the floor while I sleep. It can't be trusted.

 

[seannmelly]

We have the same skimmer, and the only time it acted funky was when it was first breaking in, and we had to keep it turned down all the way. After a couple of days, it was working awesome and still is. I agree with the above because these skimmers work great, it just takes some time to learn how to adjust them. Also, to avoid having water on your floor, the collection cup should have and overflow on it that you just hook a plastic hose to and let it drain into a bucket or something.

 

[matt819]

btw I do have the latest set of instructions from coralife. I was wondering if I should setup that valve on the tube above the pump before the water flows into the skimmer, this is the only other thing I can think of? My wife even calls it the stupid skimmer...

 

[matt819]

Yeah, that's what I should do....drill a hole in the collection cup...thanks, forgot about that idea.

 

[pallan]

Originally Posted by Matt819
Yeah, that's what I should do....drill a hole in the collection cup...thanks, forgot about that idea.

no dont drill a hole!!!!! it already should have a hole in the collection cup, remove the plug attach a piece of airline hose to it and run it into a container i use a milk jug. keeps me good to go for a week or two before needing to clean out the mess.
its really a great skimmer for the money. hope it works out for you if not call or go to coralifes website ive heard they have great customer service. i just have not needed them yet. Good luck

 

[katz]

They do have a great customer service department. I had problems in the beginning and they walked me right through the problem. One thing you need to do often is clean the filter and replace it once a month.
Is the water coming out of the bottom of the red cap or the top of the collection cup? If it is the red cup make sure that the o-ring is lubercated. Mine dried out due to it coming off while cleaning.
Katz

 

[chipmaker]

Not really sure of what model super skimmer were discussing so all of the CSS do nor have a means of attaching a tube to collection cup.
I would not use the valve between pump and skimmer tube. I would make the pump setup as close to the surface as possible. That is the intake strainer can even start to make a vortex from the surface to the pump.....and even if a bit of the 0pump itself is out of the water, its not going to over heat or hurt a thing. Pull air venturi fitting off front of pump make sure its clean and not obstructed. Check needle wheel to make sure its not dirty or has debri tangled in it. With tank fully topped off to max water level adjust outflow tube so the end is at or about 1/8" above max water level. Turn it on and adjust so bobbles are about 1" above top of red retaining ring.
QUESTIION>>>>>>Do you have an auto top off? If so are you sure its not sticking on you and adding more water to tank, as if it is then air productin by venturi is reduced and more water is pumped. This would raise the level of water in the collection cup very quickly. By design I can not see how a fixed amount of water in a tank WITHOUT a ATO device can continually put outb water through a skimmer so that gallons of water are diverted outside the tank. If its making bubbles, the amount of water in the column of the body is still going to allow any water that may spill back out of the collection cup (which is lower internally than externally so it puts water back into skimmer body instead of outside collection cup) can put water out on the floor..
Your setup has to have a pump that is too deep in the water, an ATO that malfuctions, or a faulty venturi assembly or leaking air line to venturi......or a bad needle wheel, which is sort of unlikely the needle wheel would fail as it is the other possible problems mentioned.
Have you called Coral Life and talked to Roland?

 

[matt819]

I used my dremel and a drill bit that is the same size the the tubing for my RO system's tubing which I run into a bucket inside my cabinet now. Hopefully that will prevent the cup from overflowing...it overflows right over the cup to answer your questions. I do not have an auto top-off unit. I have the pump about as shallow as possible for the entire time it's been setup, it does create that little vortex sometimes so I know what you mean there. The clear plastic tubing which connects the pump is just long enough so the body of the skimmer and the actual pump outflow just barely don't touch. What do you mean by clean the filter??? I think I mainly just have to clean it ALLLL the time. Thanks for all of your input though guys.