Need Advice: How to tune Avast Cone Skimmer

[jason the filter freak]

I have an Avast > recirculating with gate valve mod< Cone skimmer which I love in concept. But I'm having a hard time getting it dialed in. I'm just getting very wet skimmate or none at all. 

 

How far does your fine foam/water mixture come up the skimmer neck?

 

Do you have any sort of tuning device on your air intake?

 

Do you find it's better to control the water level in the skimmer body using the effluent valve or by dialing the feed pump?

 

My air intake is pretty loud, any advice on that?

 

Note: It is definitely technically oversized for my tank volume. I have a 80 gallon with a 16 gallon sump. With live rock displacement and the sump running around 8-10 gallons give or take. I probably have pretty close to only 80 gallons of total volume. Stock list is a pair of clowns a pair of bangii cardinals,  gramma, shrimp/goby pair. I do try to feed the tank at least once a day with fish food, a few times a week with reef roids, and everyday with Reef Energy AB+