crappy protien skimmers

[gregwiechardreefr]

My protien skimmer is tempermental as a toddler. Its a ebay skimmer I bought for 45 bucks. However t goes from inactive to foamy skim to wet to just dumping water about 3 times a day. During the beginning of the cycle its good skm by from there on its horrible. Is this effective at all?

 

[enderg60]

Short answer no its not working well like that at all.

You first need to figure out if the skimmer is reacting to something being added to the water, be it food or some kind of supplement or additive.

If thats the case you can either lower the dosage of whatever it is and do it more often, or get a larger skimmer.

If its not something being added to the tank, check to see if the skimmer is changing the amount of bubbles for some reason. Sticky pump, clogged air input and so on.

if thats not it either make sure the skimmer is located somewhere in the sump that has unchanging water level. As in if its in the last section of your sump where water evaporates from(water level goes down) move it.

If its none of those, just get a new skimmer that doesnt suck.

 

[cedzaquaddiction]

What kind of skimmer is it, and how long have you been running it? My skimmer overflowed for about the first day after I started using it. It slowly got into the rythm, and a break-in so-to speak insued. After about a week, it is running just fine and producing good skimmate with no overflows. I can literally go days now without emptying it...

Also: as stated above what you do to your water affects the bubbles that the skimmer makes and in-turn affects the behavior of the skimmer...

Best of luck!!!