Need help with Skimmer

[mcdonaldjosh7]

Alright, so this has happened before but this time I cannot manage to fix it.

Basically, occasionally when the power is cut to the tank, the skimmer goes weird...it produces almost no bubbles and moves next to no water...i cannot get the water level in the cone above the top of the return plumbing.

The pump does a weird pulse...and when i block off the air line, it pulses much more rapidly...

So in the past I have tapped it a few times or taken it apart...and put it back together and it somehow worked.

I just now separated the pump, and ran it in a beaker of water and it spouted out a lot of water...

I do not think the plumbing is clogged, but I don't know how I could go about finding out if it is.

The skimmer is a HOB Eshoppe 100

 

[sandswhitson]

We have a Euroreef that does this whenever we shut it off. I can get it started by blowing air down the venturi line. I usually use a turkey baster it works pretty well.

 

[ac7av]

I have been watching people with problems with this skimmer and I have a thought on what mite be going on and it explains everything from not wanting to start to the more common overflowing the cup.

I think it is as simple as air in the exhaust tube back into the tank.
Here is what I thing its doing and what could be done to fix it for good.

If you have an air bubble in the exhaust before it goes into the tank because you have to turn off the skimmer or installing it for the first time and have air going into the pump, the pump may not be able to produce enough pressure to push out the air bubble in the exhaust to get the water flowing again. The reason this is a problem is the location of the pump out side of the tank.

Same goes for the continuous overflowing of the cup. An air bubble blocking the exhaust is causing the back pressure to be much higher in the skimmer body because the bubble is causing a restriction of the water. The water volume and speed threw the exhaust tube is not enough to always push out the air bubble. What I think may fix this is a small air bleeder hole in the top of the exhaust tube on the tank side will allow the air to easily bleed out correcting this problem and if the power flickers, eliminating the start up problems.

 

[the6goat6man6]

I have been watching people with problems with this skimmer and I have a thought on what mite be going on and it explains everything from not wanting to start to the more common overflowing the cup.

I think it is as simple as air in the exhaust tube back into the tank.
Here is what I thing its doing and what could be done to fix it for good.

If you have an air bubble in the exhaust before it goes into the tank because you have to turn off the skimmer or installing it for the first time and have air going into the pump, the pump may not be able to produce enough pressure to push out the air bubble in the exhaust to get the water flowing again. The reason this is a problem is the location of the pump out side of the tank.

Same goes for the continuous overflowing of the cup. An air bubble blocking the exhaust is causing the back pressure to be much higher in the skimmer body because the bubble is causing a restriction of the water. The water volume and speed threw the exhaust tube is not enough to always push out the air bubble. What I think may fix this is a small air bleeder hole in the top of the exhaust tube on the tank side will allow the air to easily bleed out correcting this problem and if the power flickers, eliminating the start up problems.

I agree, most good skimmers have an air releaf hole in the exhaust. If that get clogged or there isn't one then you will have problems

 

[Skimmy]

well, according tho the vid on skimmer installation, i can see that there is a
riser tube attached to the outlet tube that has an open top,
all the air *should* escape from there, if im looking at it correctly...
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the inlet tube actually looks more suspect for having air trapped in it...
you might want to try taking the strainer off the skimmer intake and jamming a powerhead on there temporarily to
pump the tubing full of water... see if that helps.

 

[ac7av]

Is that tube actually open or is that the adjustment control?
I thought I’ve seen people cutting that tube shorter to fit in the light hoods.
I’ve not seen one of these skimmers except for in pictures.

 

[the6goat6man6]

I have been thinking about this. If the airoutlet hole( in the exhaust) is blocked, it will create a syphon, thus the water level will not go above the outport. This is how I stop my old super skimmer from over flowing. If you run a air tube from this hole to your collection cup, then positionit just below the max skimmate level, when it gets full it "plugs" this tube and the water level drops, no overflow of skimmate.

So what I am saying is, it sounds like this air hole is clogged. The us know I am interested.

 

[mcdonaldjosh7]

Alright, so I was looking at the little air intake tube...and it is actually pushing OUT....correct me if I am wrong, but I was fairly sure this is where the air came from which fed the bubbles...

 

[mcdonaldjosh7]

Got it working!
Alright, so I read what you guys said about the lines filling with air....then I realized that when i blew in the air line, it just came out the intake...which in turn filed it with air. So, I sucked through the line until I was sucking water, (clearing out that air bubble) and it started working! If someone tries to do this in future, just keep in mind you have to take the cup off and hold your hand on the top sealing it off, so that when you suck you suck from the intake line and not from the skimmer body.

 

[the6goat6man6]

For an air bubble to be stuck in the exhaust, it sounds like the releaf hole in the exhaust my be clogged. Look in the plumbing of the exhaust for a small hole. My old super skimmer had an actual fitting for air tubeing, my SWC has a small hole under the gate valve knob. If this get clogged it creates a syphon, pulling all of you water out of the chamber. As I said before, I rigged it up as an overflow fail safe.

Glad to hear you got'er going.

 

[ac7av]

For air in the intake that’s a hard one to over come. I wonder if anyone has come up with a fix for that. That’s definitely a problem with the models with the pump in the skimmer and not in the tank. I wonder if you could put an air port on the top and use an aqua lifter to remove the air and prevent that from happening again. Aqua lifters are cheep and you will just have to drill and glue a air fitting on to the top of the inlet.