Ranger's Tank Journal

[Ranger]

I work for the police department B) . Not an officer yet though, more of a cadet .

 

[Ranger]

Currently, Homemade bubble trap is a failure sorta. There are less microbubbles though. The holes I drilled into the pvc pipe(the part wrapped in the foam) are 1/8 inch. Would it help to increase the hole size? 5/16 or 3/8 inch?

EDIT: Ok lets think(GO BRAIN POWER GO), old buble trap didn't work, new bubble trap still doesn't work... Both used same filter media. Possible use some kind of more "fine/tigher" foam? I'm pretty sure its not just that the skimmer is producing excess bubbles because even with airflow extremely restriced microbubbles still make their way out of the outlet... I think I'm just a retard and am doing something wrong...

EDIT 2: What I don't get is that... the water outlet on the main skimmer chamber is at the bottom. Why are there bubbles on the bottom of the chamber, shouldn't they be up at the top?

 

[SkiFletch]

In response to edit 2, its because there are so many of them. If you super-saturate the reaction chamber with bubbles (cause the coralife pumps are so good at creating them its easy), some will escape out the bottom.

Can you humor me for a bit Ranger? Try mixing up a bucket of new salt water, no additives, just RO and salt mix and see if the skimmer still creates massive amounts of bubbles? I just want to rule out something in your tank water overly advancing the bubble making process

Another question/thought. You mention you are restricting airflow? How so? You might want to try the following: Get bubbles to form, then restrict the air flow just to the point at which bubbles stop forming. Then, try and jumpstart the air bubbles by blowing gently into the air line. Once bubbles are being formed again, see if they stay running.

And lastly, have you tried lowering the water level in your display tank?

 

[Ranger]

In response to edit 2, its because there are so many of them. If you super-saturate the reaction chamber with bubbles (cause the coralife pumps are so good at creating them its easy), some will escape out the bottom.

Can you humor me for a bit Ranger? Try mixing up a bucket of new salt water, no additives, just RO and salt mix and see if the skimmer still creates massive amounts of bubbles? I just want to rule out something in your tank water overly advancing the bubble making process

Another question/thought. You mention you are restricting airflow? How so? You might want to try the following: Get bubbles to form, then restrict the air flow just to the point at which bubbles stop forming. Then, try and jumpstart the air bubbles by blowing gently into the air line. Once bubbles are being formed again, see if they stay running.

And lastly, have you tried lowering the water level in your display tank?

Yeah, I'll humor you. I'll get on that when I get home tomorrow. Just to be clear, you want me to run the skimmer straight out of the bucket right?

Airflow: I restrict the airflow by using a (not sure how to explain)... Well, you put the air tube through a platic holder with a cylinder in it (it came with one of my powerheads), and you roll the cyclinger forward/backward to restrict/allow airflow because the cylinder is on an angled guide, so when you roll it down one way it pinches the airhose tight. I hope you get the picture cuz I don't know how else to explain it. I actually had gone to home depot before I had read ur post about the type of airlfow regulator, I'll grab one tomorrow. The picture you posted, you did say it wasn't exactly it, but it SHOULD have some type of a valve on it right?

I have not tried lowering the water level in my tank, however I have tried moving the powerhead to a higher level on the tank (which would have the same effect as lowering the water level?)

 

[SkiFletch]

Heh, why bother trying to find a pic online when I can just take one of my own valve This is obviously a close-up image but here's what you're looking for:

I'd reccomend taking your skimmer's airline tubing with you to try it out so that you get the right size

 

[rhysiboy]

If you have to needed lighting I'd get some live rock and live sand. These things have little organisms in them that helps with the filtering.

If you just have the normal lighting you can get away with a FO (fish only) aquarium, from the list you provided I believe you have what you need. You need a meter to tell you your ratio of saltwater.

Look

that site isnt very good information i mean it suggests to use bleach!?! and it says add live rock and a week later buy a power head ...hmmm i know this was at the start but it just annoyed me

 

[Ranger]

I haven't had the time in the past couple of days to test my skimmer in RO water only . I'm getting on it today though, so expect a post later

 

[Ranger]

Went to fill up my bucket with RO water. Only to find that the RO unit I bought leaks like crazy... and LFS won't take it back. Whoopee. Are these bubbles in my tank bad for fish? or is it purely an asthetic deal? Cuz if they aren't harmful I'll just leave them there.

 

[SkiFletch]

They're OK for most fish, but corals will not tolerate them well at all

 

[sparklefuzz]

Went to fill up my bucket with RO water. Only to find that the RO unit I bought leaks like crazy... and LFS won't take it back. Whoopee. Are these bubbles in my tank bad for fish? or is it purely an asthetic deal? Cuz if they aren't harmful I'll just leave them there.

If it is faulty, they have to take it back... where is it leaking?

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah you might be able to fix it

 

[Ranger]

I've got the coralife model, and it leaks through the threads where u screw in one of the plascit uh... cyclinder covers. At first I thought it was just improperly threaded, but upon numerous trys to get it right, I figured it was just fubar. So I swiftly tried to mend the situation by smashing my head into the nearest wall . Now that I'm anger free and thinking a bit more clearly, I could probably throw an O-ring on there.

 

[sianeds]

If it's just the bubbles escaping into the tank you're worrie about, I may have a solution for you......

My skimmer did exactly the same thing. Me and my husband tinkered with it for ages and couldn't stop the micro bubbles.

On our visits round all the LFS however we noticed that the top of all the bubble stoppers was slightly above the water level.

We went home and taped an empty dvd box onto the back of the tank a few centimeters higher than the edge to hang the bubble stopper on and hey presto, no bubbles in the tank.

Our skimmer was also running really high and overflowing and this has also stopped now the bubble stopper is higher.

Hope this helps...

 

[SkiFletch]

as to the RO unit, can you take a pic and draw an arrow where the leak is coming from?

 

[Ranger]

If it's just the bubbles escaping into the tank you're worrie about, I may have a solution for you......

My skimmer did exactly the same thing. Me and my husband tinkered with it for ages and couldn't stop the micro bubbles.

On our visits round all the LFS however we noticed that the top of all the bubble stoppers was slightly above the water level.

We went home and taped an empty dvd box onto the back of the tank a few centimeters higher than the edge to hang the bubble stopper on and hey presto, no bubbles in the tank.

Our skimmer was also running really high and overflowing and this has also stopped now the bubble stopper is higher.

Hope this helps...

Could you try explaining that differently, I'm kindof confused . Do you mean the top of the bubble trap is above water? I'll try and see if I can get my "bubble stopper " a little bit more out of the water, thanks.

as to the RO unit, can you take a pic and draw an arrow where the leak is coming from?

Yeah, camera is dead atm. I'll do it in the morning.