adding a recirculating pump to skimmer

[carsonc]

I mounted a sedra 3500 on my 6 in dia euro-clone skimmer with the intake on the bottom and used the original inlet hole for the output of the pump. I just used uniseals and it is mounted to the side of the chamber. I am using gravity flow from the overflow box to feed the skimmer thru a 1/2 in hole in the side of the lower chamber close to the top edge.

The problem is that the reaction chamber fills with very small bubbles (99 % of the chamber is opaque white bubbles) but it will only push about a 1 in layer of foam up into the tube going to the collection cup.
If I close the gate valve the water level rises into the tube but the small amount of foam just becomes less. If I raise the water level up to about 1/2 in from the top of the tube it will push some foam into the cup but will not form any new foam.

Any body know why it is doing this ?
Thanks Carson

 

[RandyStacyE]

Are you sure the pump is the right size (gph)? I think it is the right size (gph). Skimmers usually take a while before they really start skimming. It sound like it may be working just fine; especially if you are getting the fog of microbubbles. From what I understand the Euro-Reef and ASM skimmers do not put out a lot of flow but a hellacious ammount of micro bubbles. I'd just let it run a while.

I had a skimmer that didn't seem to be doing much either until one day it just kicked in and skimmed like crazy.