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Got a skimmer


Ira

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The skimmer from Desh finally arrived today. It's a Berlin Classic(Yeah, I know you guys aren't a fan of them) powered by a Laguna Powerjet 2000. I'd thought I'd be able to just put it on the floor next to the tank,connect everything up, turn it on, adjust it and I'd be done. Nope. I'm going to have to buy a bunch of hoses for it, maybe replace the impeller, buy a new inlet filter for the pump, maybe a ball valve to adjust the flow of the pump. To begin with, because I don't have a sump, I think I'll have to have the skimmer sitting on the kitchen counter next to the tank because it'll have to have the outlets at least that high. Not a big deal though, if I can figure out a way to get the hoses to stay in place in the tank. Not pretty, but hopefully should work. Anyone see a problem with this or have any suggestions?

I did have a little incident with the pump. Dropped it into the tank and plugged it in to see if it was working. Hmmm...It's not working. Lifted it closer to the surface and looked at it. Hmmm...Impeller isn't working. Maybe if I tap itAHHHH!!! Big fountain of water flying out of the tank all over the wall behind it. I guess I underestimated how much flow 3800 liters/hour is, hehe.:)

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Got it running now and...It's doing nothing but dumping bubbles into my tank! If it doesn't start producing in the next hour or two I'm going to see if I can rig up a way to remove the venturi and give it a clean.

What would happen if I bought a wooden airstone and dropped that into the center tube? Or is that just a stupid idea?:)

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The wooden airstone is a stupid idea :wink:

If its not doing anything maybee the pump using to feed it is under-powered?

Most skimmers dump air bubbles into the tank. This is one of the major advantages of using a sump! Ever wounderd why so many sump designs have 'baffles' built in? Its to stop the bubbles from the skimmer! All is not losts, there are a few DIY soultions you will be able to apply.

Eric Bourneman sais that the Micro Bubbles are not harmfull in anyway so at least its not a problem.

As for the skimmer skimming. If its under powered it wont. But it make take a few hrs of even days for it to fire into life.

Pies

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It's still doing nothing, I can see some foam down the tube that goes up into the collection cup and occasionally a small blob of foam will get pushed by the airflow up into the cup, but that's it.

Would the outflow water have any effect on the skimming? I've got it going through about 3 feet of hoses to get into the tank. And the instructions seem to say you should have absolutely no restriction. It's about as good as I can get it though. Actually, I could try and rig it up as a HOB, it's just a slight piping difference between the in sump and the HOB version of the berlin, as far as I can tell. That way the outlet could be going straight into the tank.

I wonder what my chances are of buying the correct HOB pieces...

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On Wednesday Reef said this:

it will take about 3-4 days before it will work as it will need to produce a slim coat inside the skimmer.

also the air going into the skimmer needs to be reduce for a week and then fully opened.

Same day Ira said this:

Ah...So basically, "Be patient and leave it alone" for a few days?

The following day Ira then said this:

It's still doing nothing, I can see some foam down the tube that goes up into the collection cup and occasionally a small blob of foam will get pushed by the airflow up into the cup, but that's it.

What part about wait 3-4 days was unclear?

And just because it made me laugh Layton then said this:

That's how a skimmer works.
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I closed off the air and noticed something wierd about the skimmer. The water goes up the center cylinder, falls out of it into the second where the water level is about 5-6" lower then it goes down afew more inches and around and back up the last cylinder, past the level of the second cylinder and out of the skimmer. What I don't get is...How the hell does the water level in the in the third cylinder go up past the water in the second? I can't figure out anything that would be sucking it up so you'd expect the water level to be even through all of them, it's totally out of balance! It's like magic!

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