mexicanjavafish April 2, 2008 Share April 2, 2008 I have a turbofloater 1000 skimmer with the aquamedic pump and i've got a problem: it isn't skimming properly. the cup is filling wayyy too quickly, and not actually skimming anything...the water in the cup is pretty clear, and jason and i can't figure out what we can do about it. we've tried turning the valve right behind the skimmer to reduce the amount of water going into it, it's almost shut at this point, but that still isn't helping. we've tried twisting, turning, and repositioning just about everything in there and it's not changing anything. has something like this happened to anyone else? what can i do to fix it? (as soon as my phone decides its actually going to send the picture to my email account, i'll post a pic so you can see how it's set up....my phone took a swim while we were aquascaping.. :( ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak April 2, 2008 Share April 2, 2008 More details, the drain line form the overflow has a t in it and part of the T has a ball valve on it to allow for adjustment of flow rate into the skimmer, it's controlled by a ball valve now, but will be replaced with a gate valve eventually. Also right now the two caps that are ball vales on the output on the skimmer (stock) are both currently completely open and the inflow to the skimmer is cranked way back and it's still skimming super wet! what gives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mexicanjavafish April 2, 2008 Author Share April 2, 2008 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discretekarma April 2, 2008 Share April 2, 2008 This has happened to me several times where the skimmer would just fill up fast and pour over the edge constantly. I tried everything to figure it out with no luck. Finally, I did what another member suggested. I siphoned out some water through the cup. I put a siphon in the skimmer cup and if the cup would empty out I would turn up the skimmer to keep it full for about a half of a bucket or a full bucket. The first time I did think it just kept siphoning on its own for about 3 buckets before it slowed down. At the time, I didn't know what was making it go crazy but I knew this would get it all out. I finished and then filled the tank back to replace to buckets that I removed. As soon as I replaced the water it went crazy again. I realized then that it was the prime that I was using to condition the water. It says on the back that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore April 2, 2008 Share April 2, 2008 The tee is a gravity feed from the overflow, right? That should work fine. Like Scott said: just let the thing skim clear for a few hours. Keep dumping it (or siphoning) into a 5 gal bucket and it will stop once whatever is in the water gets pulled out. It will settle down after that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak April 2, 2008 Share April 2, 2008 The tee is gravity fed from the overflow, should we just leave it full open for now? How do i know how many gph we're feeding the skimmer, should i bother replacing it with a gate valve? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore April 2, 2008 Share April 2, 2008 The gate is nice to help you fine tune skimmer production, but once you get the ball dialed in you'll never mess with it again. Put a 1gal container to catch the skimmer effluent, time it, and do the math to find throughput. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami April 2, 2008 Share April 2, 2008 Have you cleaned out your air line recently? I have the hang-on version of this skimmer and noticed that I had a salt plug developing at the point where the air tubing enters the pump (just inside the removable pump housing). The salt plug that formed there slowed the air flow into the pump, resulting in increased water uptake. This in turn led to higher water levels in the skimmer, and overflow. It's easy to check and just as easy to fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak April 3, 2008 Share April 3, 2008 It's actually a brand new skimmer so maybe it will "break in". How often do you find yourself having to adjust the mini gatevalves on teh skimmer itself to keep the bubble production nice and sweet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami April 3, 2008 Share April 3, 2008 (edited) Ah, new skimmer. I agree, it needs to break in. It should only take a day or so to get a film going that will settle things down. My first skimmer had me very worried the first time that I installed it - it was overflowing everywhere. What a mess that was! Anyway, I've read that others have had trouble tweaking this model to get consistent production, but I've not personally had that problem. I have both of my flow-control valves (I think that aqua-medic calls them "throttle caps") pretty much set to point 90-degrees from the direction of the water flow and, for the most part, that's where I leave them. The cup pretty much fills on my 90 about once a week with a nice dark sludge. Please note, though, that I have a slightly different model than you have. You have the Turboflotor 1000 and are using it in-sump while I, not having as much room in my sump, got a Turboflotor 1000 SL Multi hanging on the outside of my sump but drawing water in from a separate pump hanging inside the sump. You may find that you have to set your "throttle caps" differently. Once you get your ball valve set about right, you'll probably be able to fine-tune the level in your skimmer using the throttle caps so you can skim wetter or dryer at your discretion and not your skimmer's. As for "bubble production," I'm no skimmer expert, but I suspect that bubble production is only part of the equation and is, at least in the short term fixed by the pump, method of bubble production (bubble size), and its air uptake capability. The other part of the equation is the time the bubbles are in contact with the water. I think the latter is set more by the flow (fast or slow, smooth or turbulent)through the skimmer body. The smooth or turbulent part, I figure, is part of the skimmer design and I don't have much control over it. The "fast or slow" part, though, is where I do have control and that's done, in my case, by setting the depth of my skimmer pump and adjusting the throttle caps. Hope this helps in some way. Good luck! Edited April 3, 2008 by Origami2547 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mexicanjavafish April 6, 2008 Author Share April 6, 2008 Well, I'm not too sure what I did, but the skimmer is fixed. It's skimming well and running properly, as far as I can tell . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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