Whaler's 30g Finnex

[masterbuilder]

Love your tank...nice job. The stock skimmer is more trouble than its worth. I tossed mine and run skimmerless. If I was going to run a skimmer again (and I might), I would look at some of the HOB skimmers out there. They dont rely on perfect water levels in the rear chambers. Only other suggestion that most of us here do...replace the Actinics with ATI Blue+ lamps. Huge increase in light levels and give the same pop as Actinics or more. Again...great setup, great job...I esp like the Finnex light you have...now....STUFF IT FULL OF CORALS

[Phixion]

I've never had issues with my stock skimmer and 3 years later (even after sitting dry for a good 6-7 months recently) it's still skimming great! I should get you guys some pics of it.

[masterbuilder]

Now you tell me! I tried everything and didnt get it to skim worth a flip, was super sensitive to rear chamber water levels. I should have asked you.

[Phixion]

Now you tell me! I tried everything and didnt get it to skim worth a flip, was super sensitive to rear chamber water levels. I should have asked you.

 

It's finiky and requires loadsof patience. Also it might not work as well for others as it did for me, the whole everyone's tank is different. But yeah, mine works well... This isn't a recent pic of it, but one taken a day after I had cleaned it out:

 

[Whaler]

Here is a picture of my skimmer going, it FINALLY looks like its pulling some skim. It has been running constant for about a week except for turning it of during feeding (that's all the skim I got in a week). I'm still getting lots of micro-bubbles.

 

 

Here are some pics of the fuge setup. The 1st is looking at the top of the tank with the fuge light on. The 2nd shows the entering tube and baffle on the left side. In the 3rd you can see the flow path, on the right is the 2nd compartment where media would go (empty right now - you can see all the bubbles from the skimmer), below the fuge is the where the flow goes from the 2nd chamber to the return pump in the 3rd chamber. The last two pics were hard to take as there is no way to get behind my tank, I just held the camera out as far as possible. You can see the back pretty clearly when the tank was empty in post #6 in this thread.

 

 

 

 

The Green Hair Algae is starting to get pretty bad. I just ordered ChemiPure Elite, Phosguard, 8.3 buffer and pellet food (I've only fed frozen to this point.) Tomorrow during my water change I plan on pulling out some of the rocks and scrubbing as much of as possible. I may go get a couple more blue leg hermits and maybe an emerald crab too. Still not sure of the cause yet - frustrating. Tested water tonight about 2 hrs after the lights went out, 5-10ppm Nitrates and 0ppm Phosphate. I'm going to test in the morning after a night without lights to see if the nitrates and phosphate go up (maybe the algae is using it up while the lights are on?)

[Whaler]

My battle with GHA continues. I cut the light cycle back to 3 hrs (from 7), added two Cortez Hermits and an Emerald crab yesterday. At night I pulled out four of the rocks that had the most GHA on them and scrubbed with a toothbrush (lots of threads on NR recommend that), cleaned in "old tank water" and then fresh "clean" water. I put the rocks back in the tank then grabbed all the snails, crabs, etc I could find and placed them right on the rocks I just scrubbed. Its amazing how different the GHA looks when it is out of the tank. I scrubbed everywhere on the rocks I thought I could see it, but this morning I see all the places I missed, guess I'll have to do a round 2 when things settle down a bit. I'm a little concerned I'll get a small cycle from scrubbing the rocks.

[Phixion]

Mexican Turbo snails are one of the best GHA eaters. Get a couple and you should start seeing it dissapear. Skimmer is looking not bad!! Give it some more time before the bubbles start to subside. Mine produces zero micro bubbles, and I don't run any sponge over the output from it. I also don't run any filter floss on the drip tray either. But in due time it'll get better. Just finding that perfect dial-in spot. For mine it's easy now since coralline formed over the knob, so I can't turn it which keeps it always perfectly in place.

[burtbollinger]

http://www.reefbuilders.com/2009/09/12/tea...ckwork-century/

[masterbuilder]

Mexican Turbo snails are one of the best GHA eaters.

 

What he said

[Paleoreef103]

Mexican Turbo snails are one of the best GHA eaters. Get a couple and you should start seeing it dissapear. Skimmer is looking not bad!! Give it some more time before the bubbles start to subside. Mine produces zero micro bubbles, and I don't run any sponge over the output from it. I also don't run any filter floss on the drip tray either. But in due time it'll get better. Just finding that perfect dial-in spot. For mine it's easy now since coralline formed over the knob, so I can't turn it which keeps it always perfectly in place.

Is the knob on the plastic part of the pump that leads to its interface with the column? Because I can't find any other knob and it is not much of a knob. I'm interested because I'm really thinking about junking mine, but figured if I can get it to work it'll save me the 150 on a new Tunze 9002...

 

Sorry for the hijack. I just hate this skimmer and hope it can be made better.

[Whaler]

Is the knob on the plastic part of the pump that leads to its interface with the column? Because I can't find any other knob and it is not much of a knob.

 

That is the knob. You're right, it doesn't turn, it just kind of moves in and out. My skimmer has started skimming somewhat after letting it run for several days. It just doesn't seem to produce very much and its pretty light in color.