I made a careless mistake today!

[budsreef]

I am usually very careful about what goes into my tanks, but today I was in a hurry and made a careless and potentially costly mistake. I emptied my saltwater container so I could take it outside and clean it with the hose and I figured while I was at it I might as well swap out my filter socks. I recently bought another sock as a spare and in a rush I opened it and put it into the sump. About ten minutes later I went by the sump and saw my skimmer going crazy and overflowing. I also saw foam coming out of the top of the sock so I pulled it out and put another clean one in its place. Each time I emptied the skimmer it would immediately fill again with wet foam/water. I had 5 gallons of new saltwater in a bucket so I added that to the system and ended up pulling about 4 gallons of water out via the skimmer filling up before it finally settled back down.

So far nothing is showing any ill effects but I have no idea what could have been in that sock so I'm really worried about the potential of something lingering in the system that could be harmfull. Unfortunately, it's going to take me a bit to get the mixing system going again to have freshly mixed water on hand.

 

[dakota9]

Was it a new filter sock that caused the issue? I think we all use fliter socks/ filter cloth out of the container. Do you think prewashing a new filter sock is warranted?

 

[budsreef]

It was definitely the filter sock and I have it soaking in bleach water. I think I have always rinsed the new ones before using them and just flat out screwed up by not doing it this time.

 

[seedless reefer]

Silica pack?

 

[weaglereefer]

My skimmer always goes crazy when I use a new sock. I've noticed that brand new socks are so porus that they break the splashing water into micro bubbles. Once they've been cleaned once, they don't do that for me any more.

 

[ralph atl]

hopefully, you'll be ok. There are a lot of benign thinks that make a skimmer go crazy. use some carbon & a water change.

 

[lilrobb]

ARGH!

While I read this I ran down and checked - did the same thing today, and the same thing happened.

Bud, you saved me from a major spill!!!!

 

[victor626nj]

should be fine bud my DAS use to do that all the time when I would add a new filter sock ...you should turn off your skimmer for like 4-5 hours and should be back to normal

 

[budsreef]

Thanks everyone, it looks like the skimmer is back to normal and I see no ill effects. I've got my salt mixing container soaking overnight so I put a small Rubermaid Tub into action so I'll at least have about 12 gallons of fresh tomorrow.

 

[budsreef]

I'm glad you caught it in time! Luckily, even though my skimmer is external I have it sitting over top of my sump so when it blew the top off it just spilled over into the sump. Thanks to Raj for that idea when he came over once last year.

LilRobb;321591 wrote: ARGH!

While I read this I ran down and checked - did the same thing today, and the same thing happened.

Bud, you saved me from a major spill!!!!

 

[oldschool52]

I had the same thing happen to me today. I don't use filter socks but I do use foam filter material (strange setup but it works for me). This is the first time I have changed the fiter in about 3 months. I rins3e the filter out about once a week in the sink then rinse it again in ro/di water. Pulled the new out of the package and forgot to rinse it out. Skimmer went nuts but caught it before it over flowed. The skimmate just started to dribble out of the top of the skimmer, emptied it and it did it again and now it seems to have settled down. I am keeping an eye on it since it is in my sump. I'll remember to rinse out my filter material next time I put in new, (yeh right!!! LOL) I'll forget and start the skimmer dash again in about 2 - 3 months from now.

 

[budsreef]

My skimmer was OK this morning and everything looks good. Even though no harm appears to have been done, there must be something in the new material that just shouldn't go in our tanks if it makes the skimmer go crazy. Any new material going in my tank will get soaked in bleach water and rinsed very well first.