skimmer not skimmiing..or is it ?

[sansouci01]

I have a aquatic life 115 skimmer for my 20 gallon tank. Seems to be working fine but I'm just not getting much if any skimmate out of it. Does this mean my water is just very clean ? I only have a couple of chromis and a few snails in my tank right now...

 

[Fishman007]

How often do you clean the skimming box?

 

[dragonfisher33]

have you let it break-in? water can never be "too clean" to the point where no skimmate is pulled into the collection cup. what does your skimmate look like?

 

[LaWoWee]

You dont have much of a bioload yet so you cant expect to see much skimmate

 

[sansouci01]

Well,
first off, it's been running for about 2 months. I haven't taken it out of the tank to clean it yet. I would assume that it should be broken in after two months. The skimmate that I do get is a yellowish liquid..but I really don't get much foaming action no matter how I adjust it.

 

[dragonfisher33]

what brand/model is your skimmer? sometimes a less well known skimmer will only pull wet skimmate, as oppose to the "dry" skimmate that you're familiar with.

 

[Fishman007]

what brand/model is your skimmer? sometimes a less well known skimmer will only pull wet skimmate, as oppose to the "dry" skimmate that you're familiar with.

He lists it in the first post

 

[dragonfisher33]

sorry, i think i have an better idea of your situation now since i have had the same skimmer. if you search for the thread i made some time ago, you will find that i have had the same problem with the 115 skimmer. the AquaticLife 115 is known to pull the wet skimmate and it needs precise tuning of the flow control in order for it to function properly.

 

[dragonfisher33]

here's the thread i created, you can read it and tell we have the same problem until i dumped it.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...-too-much-water-in-collection-cup-275624.html

 

[huma-huma]

I believe the ability, or even degree, to pull dry skimmate out is based mainly on the quality of pump used. older prop-style pumps aren't very effective at all at creating the necessary density of microbubbles to really pull out the heavy gunk. newer needle-wheel and even mesh-wheel pumps are expontentially more efficient in this aspect. without a high enough density of microbubbles, a skimmer will only "wet skim"