Ken said that the level can be anywhere bewteen the top of the pump and the bottom of the "drip tray" which I am assuming is the new piece with the sponge that was included with my aquarium. I have emailed him asking if there is a prefered position.

Bill

Bill, the skimmer cup will accumulate a tiny amount of the most disgusting looking brown water everyday. Ideally it should be a frothy foam though. But to set up the skimming, adjust the skimmer adjustment knob until the bubbles ar about halfway up the center part of the cup. The force of the bubbles will keep the water out and push up skimmate material when any is collected. Eventually bubbles will be pushed up and over into the cup. Once they pop and such you're left with a brown soup in the cup that should fill about halfway every several days.

Maybe it's just my tank, but when I turn on the fuge diversion to the main pump, the water lever fills up in the fuge of course, but it flows out over the edge of the false wall as well as the divider between the fuge and center chamber... Anyone else experience this??

Thanks, that mental image for the skimmer cup will be very useful.

I have turned it off for the time being. I am trying to eliminate a bubble problem that actually has nothing to do with the skimmer. If I don't leave in the drip tray I get lots of bubbles wether I have the skimmer on or not. I think that is the reason for the tray - to break the fall of water and make it more gentle when it hits the water in the center chamber, thus cutting down on bubbles.

Bill

Not sure if it happens to yours Bil, but with my tank when the water lever is low enough to the return pipe that when it drips you can hear it, then more bubbles seem to be produced... Try to keep the middle chamber as high as you can.

I keep my middle chamber 2/3rds the way up. It stains the glass outside the fuge, but it keeps the noise down and gives me room for media.

Yeah, the higher the better, but I was still getting some bubbles no matter how high I kept the water level until I re-inserted the drip tray.

On a different subject, I changed the lights on my old Nanocube24 today. When I removed the splash guard, somehow a shrimp had managed to crawl inside and get stuck! Needless to say that was one very dead and very dried out shrimp. Based on what I saw this was no molt, but the whole shrimp. At least now I know where that peppermint shrimp got to. Oh, and if anyone is interested the Nanocube24 holds 20.5 gallons of water with nothing in it. I measured it when I refilled it tonight.

Bill

I don't have lights yet, but my tank evaporated a full gallon yesterday. Is that normal? I do have low humidity in my house right now, but a gallon with no lights?

Bill

Mine doesn't even lose that much in 2 days let alone one. Do you have both of the glass covers on? I'd put them on if they aren't already and evaporation is a concern... Also look into a good ATO system.

I have put both covers on now. We will see what happens.

I have the skimmer on, and man is it shooting bubbles into the tank. How long does this go on? I know the unit has been troublesome on the bubble front, but how long do the bubbles just pour out? Does it ever improve at all?

Bill

billm...
Did you set-up your fuge at the same time you added your live rock and sand to the main tank or did you wait until the tank cycled?

It DOES indeed improve. Give it about a week, that's how long mine took before bubbles were minimal.

My tank is still cycling, and yes I set up my fuge with cheato right away. I really didn't give it much thought about wether it was the right thing to do!

Bill

Phixion,
After 24 hours the bubbles are better, giving me hope that the situation will resolve itself. The skimmer certainly picks up a lot of junk from the water. I imagine it will be really gross once there is something other than rock in the tank!

Bill

You have no idea how gross till you see and smell it.

In an odd sense of events, I fed my tank yesterday (some Vita-Chem, Ree-Roids and cyclopeeze) and within about 2 minutes after, my skimmer started shooting out bubbles like it did when new. I unplugged it sence (the cup was due to be cleaned/emptied out anyways) so I'll try it again today. Should the skimmer be OFF when feeding??

I put a Hydor Flo on the outlet about an hour ago, and so far so good. I pulled off all of the pipe that extends into the tank and attached it to the little stub that was left. It creates a lot of water disturbance at the surface, but the water doesn't touch the glass top.

Bill

I've heard from another member that has the tank that the Hydor doesn't work well on our tanks. I might at first but the flow rating on it is only up to 310gph if you read the box. Eventually it'll stop working properly, but if you got it to work then that's good! Let us know how it goes.

Do you think we are getting 310 at the point of outflow after the skimmer box and 12 inch lift gets factored in?

Bill

All good points Bill... If we know the actual pump used and had lift height specs we could know for sure... The flow from mine is pretty powerful, but honestly I dunno if it's 310gph+ at the return end...

Have any of you Finnex 30 glass owners experienced any leaking from under the top frame of the glass? Mine leaks if the water is up to almost there in the tank. I'm wondering if I'm just filling mine too high, or if I should seal that area up.... it only happens in the front.

I'm glad I found some folks that are a the same stage I'm at with my M-tank. Check where I'm at http://beta.photoshow.com/watch/ta5Mw9aG

I've experienced the same thing as everyone else..microbubble with the skimmer and I have a Hydro working on my return and haven't had any issues with it. I also had a ballast burn out on the t-5 lights I have now. I got a replacement from Finnex but I've decided to upgrade the lights. I'll have 380 watts on top of the take by the end of this week.

This is my first post on NR, but its also the first day of my Finnex 30g. I'll get pics up soon in a thread of my own, but just wanted to say hi to other finnex 30g owners. I got mine without lights and replaced the skimmer with a tunze nano. I also have 2 tunze 6025s for flow and they seem to work alright. I went with a giesemann 230 system light (150hqi and 24w t5s), and this was the main reason I went to the 30g instead of the 22 (the 24inch width). I guess I will order some locline for the return line and maybe a rotating reflector thing to try out. Anyone else with the tunze nano skimmer not able to get the foam to rise? I turn the air adjustment screw and nothing really happens. I know its only been like 15 hours...just impatient.
Josh

Grundig, welcome to NR.com and can't wait to see pics of your newly set up Finnex 30g. Good luck with it, I love mine!

Perry also welcome to NR.com, 380w, WOW! What's your light setup going to consist of? Perhaps I should get a hydor flow for my tank. I had one on my AP12g that my Finnex replaced, but I sold it assuming I couldn't use it on the Finnex, guess I was wrong lol!

wow i have been away from this site for too long...here's a current pic of my finnex 30g

Holy rockwork, Batman! It looks good!!

The lights will be a 250w DE 14k HQI and two 65w CP actinic with two moonlights. I just hooked up an Auto Top Off today I bought off eBay. I'm guessing the next thing I'll have to invest in will be some big fans and maybe a small chiller.

I would deffinately put a hydor on your tank. You can see one in Cshradr7's tank also. They seem to work fine and I have just minimal flow through the refugium.

Has everyone recieved the hardware for the fix for the micro bubbles? If I don't get it soon I'm going to have to buy an Ramora skimmer. I'm sure the Ramora does a better job then the Finnex one that came with the tank anyways.

Hey Cshradr7, where did you get the Live Rock from? Looks like a Foster Smith Nano group. You've got some really nice colors starting to show up.

I haven't gotten the skimmer fix kit yet myself, I'm actually curious as to what it all includes... I never got the drip trays with mine either, so I'm gonna ask Ken about that when I email him with a couple other questions I have. My skimmer has very minimal bubbles. Sometimes after cleaning out my tank from some algae or after I did a W/C this past weekend, then it'll start suddenly producing tons of micro bubbles. I'll unplug it and then plug it back in after several hours and it's back to normal with minimal bubbles... I think too much junk in the water upsets it's balance or air breaking ability or something, I'm not sure really.

i have 30lbs of Premium Aquatics Nano rock (mostly marshall island) and 5 lbs of rubble in my display. then i have the other 5lbs of rubble in the refugium.

i like the hydor flo also in my tank...but a couple nights ago i looked at my tank and found it to not be spinning. so i touched it and it started again so idk if there was sand in it or what but it seems alright now.

i haven't gotten one of these skimmer fix kits either. i may have to email PA tomorrow to see whats up with that.

So far the skimmer fix hasn't meant much for me. After eight days my skimmer still puts lots of bubbles into the tank. You can see them flowing out of the sponge and into the center chamber. Maybe I got a bad one.

Bill

Bill - Do you have the intake for the skimmer pump facing up or down. I've heard that you should put it in the up position. Also you really have to fool with the air valve and the out flow valve for a while till you get to a point that's exceptable. In fact I replaced the air valve with one that I could regulate alot better. I've also read from other posts that sometimes less air bubbles is more. Anyways, just some thoughts.

Thanks. I'll keep fiddling with the valves.

I have tried the pump in both positions. I think that fix was really supposed to fix a noise probelm, which I never had because the unit had the "muffler" on it. In any case it had no impact on the bubbles. I have adjusted the intake to a position where the skimmer works acceptably, with the foam about 1/4 to 1/3 the way up the cup, but that hasn't had any impact on the bubbling either. Is there an optimal setting for the skimmer pump itself I don't know about? What else could be adjusted? Water height in the chamber and skimmer height are both pretty much fixed.

Bill

Well I wish there was soemthing I could tell you to try. I just think that even at best you can only get the microbubbles down to a minimal. Good Luck

By the way, I think I'm just going to purchase a Remora and be done with it. If you don't want to spend money, and lots of it, to get your tank the way you want it then you probably will not be happy with this hobby.

The finnex skimmers are notorious for excess bubble emission - you can either deal with it or buy a new skimmer my fish and corals don't seem to mind!

Oh, I've removed the skimmer for now. I was getting enough bubbles that I think my fish and coral WOULD mind . I'll do water changes and rely on the refugium for nutrient export for now. Of course, when I try to turn the water level up so that the 'fuge might actually do meaningful work I get bubbles from there too. That is bugging me far more than the skimmer was.

just give it some patients. the bubbles will disappear over time. i've had mine up and running now for a few months and is skimming very well.

Bill - I would put the skimmer back on for now and maybe run it on a timer for night time only. You need more filtration on the tank then just the refugium. Unless you are doing more water changes. I know it took a month before my skimmer reduced down the microbubbles, never gone, but reduced.

This is still what I get.

I had no idea it could take months. I had always heard a week should do it. I will keep trying, and thanks for the encouragement.

I've heard you can run it in a bucket by itself during breakin, that way bubbles can be minumized in the crucial time.

Never thought of that. Maybe I'll run mine in my LR curing tub. Thanks for the idea!!!

also remember that the skimmer will not work the same in freshwater as it will in saltwater. i ran my skimmer in freshwater for the first 48 hours while i was doing my leak check. this is the only difference that i've found between the way that i set my system up compared to others. i have had no problems with microbubbles since the first couple of days after switching over to saltwater. idk if the freshwater had something to do with break in, but it is what i am expecting.

OK everyone, I've decided to part with the Finnex skimmer. It was driving me crazy, those damn micro bubbles. I just purchased the AquaC Remora with a Maxijet 1200 from Aquabuys. They are local to me and I hope to pick it up tomorrow. So tomorrow the mtank gets a major face lift as the 380w light fixture should be showing up and the microbubbles will finnally be gone to the tune of $163.00 for the skimmer and $180.00 for the lights... ouch. You can't stop me...lol

I just got my skimmer fix kit in the mail today from JSK Merchandising which I assume is Finnex's parent company? Eitherway everyone keep and eye out for yours!

yes i also recieved mine today without having to request it.

LOL! I know the feeling. Just picked up the Nano shipped from Ohio for $135. On sale for $125 HERE!

After reading ALL the fiddling around with the skimmer I just decided to purchase a proven performer for the tank.

Nothing wrong with that, at least you know it'll work for sure! Plus you can sell the original skimmer to make up some of the cost for the new one.

To all of you who just got the skimmer kit, beware of the big black sponge! There are times when it seems to block the outlet, and when that happens you have little control over the skimmer. It makes far too much foam and fills the cup in a matter of hours no matter what position you have the valve. I suspect this happens when the sponge gets too dirty, so clean that sponge!

Bill

LOL! FOR SALE one Finnex stock skimmer! (for those of you who throw your original one against the wall!) Cheap!

You runnin a Remora Phix?

You getting the 380w fixture from aquatraders? I saw that the other day and couldnt believe it. I wish that I had seen it before I got my viper, same price but WAY MORE watts. Even if it isnt the highest quality out there, seems worth the gamble to me.

Yah, it's the one from aquatraders. I've had it running for two days now and I couldn't be happier. 130 watts of actinics are really bringing the colors out of everything. I've got the 250 metal halide on for only two hours a day right now and I figure I'll do this for a couple weeks. Then gradually increase the time it is on to make sure I don't shock everything. Might I add that it is really a huge difference.



This was a picture with both the CP and HQI.

Which Protein Skimmer has everyone been going with if not the stock finnex one?

I would say if you are going to upgrade get the best nano skimmer on the market, the AquaC Remora. They also make Nano version on the Remora. I've had it running for three days now and it's produced more skimmate then the other skimmer produced all together.