Skimmer overflowing, Why?

[mvallee]

My Skimmer, a reef octopus essence s130 that has been running on my system for three years will not stop overflowing, I have given it a thorough cleaning, raised it up to the point of the lower vent of the exit is above the water line, verified venturi is clear, no new additions or use of epoxy or chemicals, 3 water changes of 25 gallons in the past month and it just continues to foam over.

The only change I can think of is I stopped dosing nopox, this is about a 90 gallon water volume system and I was dosing 4ml in the morning. My numbers went way out of whack, Nitrates undetectable but Phosphates still high at between .86 to 1. and corals were losing colors so figured time to get back to basics and stopped dosing it.

Before Nopox my system was running at Nitrates 50-100 (salifert test) and Phosphates of 1.9 to 2 (Hannah test) I tried new test kits as nothing I did reduced those numbers and started wondering about accuracy but from increased water changes, rinsing food, reduced feedings,, thorough cleaning of sump nothing helped.

I am at just about 10 gallons right now of overflow from the skimmer into a bucket replacing with fresh made SW and it has not slowed and I am stopping for now.

So the only change is stopped dosing NOPOX and opening windows but in my three years with this tank and skimmer never had this issue.

Thoughts, is stopping Nopox the culprit? Should I just bite the bullet and get a new skimmer?

This little video clip is the skimmer sitting in 5.5" of water which is less than the recommended and after letting 10 gallons overflow out of the system through the skimmer

 

[Mixed Reefer]

When cleaning you must of changed the amount of air? Try tuning that down a bit. Wife cleaning house? Aerosols will do that also. Not sure about nopox I would guess less carbon would be less skimmate.

 

[mvallee]

I cleaned the skimmer due to it non stop overflowing and thinking might be something going on with the bubble plate or pump but did not change anything about how it is acting.
This skimmer has no adjustment for the air only the outflow and depth of water. Wife is a clean freak so nothing changed about that and she knows the rules for cleaning in the room with the tank, nothing sprayed in the room, only directly into rag.

Thanks for reading and tossing around ideas with me

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

Is there a reason that it's only in 5.5" of water. Quick Google search states

• Recommended Water Height: 7"-8"

 

[mvallee]

Is there a reason that it's only in 5.5" of water. Quick Google search states

• Recommended Water Height: 7"-8"

I was raising it up to reduce the overflow of foam, I was running it at 7" but started raising it to try to reduce how much it was foaming over which helped but as seen in the video still not good enough but better

 

[Platehead]

I have the same problem with my Octopus. Contacted Coral View and still have the issues. Going to Royal Exclusive.

 

[GraniteReefer]

What are you running for particulate filtration? I tried switching to sera floss for a period of time and liked its filtering performance but for a few hours after adding it would cause my skimmer to wildly overflow. So I reverted to filterfloss pad and never have the issue anymore

 

[mvallee]

What are you running for particulate filtration? I tried switching to sera floss for a period of time and liked its filtering performance but for a few hours after adding it would cause my skimmer to wildly overflow. So I reverted to filterfloss pad and never have the issue anymore

Currently not running any mechanical filtration, have a clarisea sk-5000 that I had to pull out due to an issue with the motor a while back and have not gotten it fixed yet, I was one month over the warranty unfortunately and need to get a new motor assembly for it and just have not gotten to it yet.

 

[mvallee]

I have the same problem with my Octopus. Contacted Coral View and still have the issues. Going to Royal Exclusive.

Hoping it does not come to this, it has been a good skimmer with few issues but I have been looking into DC pump skimmers that seem to give a bit more control. I will make another batch of SW tomorrow and see if another 10-15 gallons of skimmer overflow does not solve this.

 

[Joe Rice]

In the video you posted it looks like the air intake tube isn't connected to the red ring around the neck - which I think must be the air intake silencer.

 

[mvallee]

Ok, I hate to admit this but it was all user error. What I thought was the open direction on the outflow was actually closing it, so I was running the skimmer with the outflow completely closed. Step 1 of every troubleshooting article is what this turned out to be DOH!

I share this so if someone does a search they do a revalidation of the setup before thinking something is broken.

Feeling like a dope but glad it is fixed and appreciate everyone reading and offering suggestions, it helped in keeping me motivated to solve to issue.