Fluval Sea PS2 Mini Protein Skimmer

[aerotiy]

I've had this skimmer set up for a while now in my Evo so I'm fairly sure that it's past it's break-in period. It's gotten to the point where the collection cup is just filling with liquid about every 1.5-2 days. The water is basically like tank water but yellow. I'm not sure if skimmate is supposed to be that wet or if it should be thicker. The other issue I'm having is that the skimmer is taking so much water that it's lowering my salinity. My ATO topping off with freshwater isn't helping the cause either; I came home the other day and the water level was higher than it should be so I'm concerned about an overflow.

 

Turning the water knob doesn't affect the water level in the skimmer to lower it, only to make the bubbles rise faster. Messing with the air intake at all just causes the skimmer to stop making bubbles completely. I'm to the point where I don't even want to bother with the skimmer anymore since I've read so often that they're not all that necessary in a tank this size, plus I do weekly water changes, 2 gallons out of ~12, but I have to since I've been dosing NOPOX and the directions specifically say you need skimming to remove the excess bacteria.

 

Any ideas on what to do now?

[dandelion]

18 minutes ago, aerotiy said:

Messing with the air intake at all just causes the skimmer to stop making bubbles completely

How exactly did you “mess” with the air intake to make it stop bubbling? Maybe the trick is to limit the amount of air intake but not choke it completely?

[aerotiy]

19 minutes ago, dandelion said:

How exactly did you “mess” with the air intake to make it stop bubbling? Maybe the trick is to limit the amount of air intake but not choke it completely?

I've messed with it at all points between completely closed at open. It's either no bubbles or too many that make their way to the top and begin collecting.

[dandelion]

I have the aquatic life 115 which is a very similar skimmer, though not identical. The FS2 improved upon the 115 by routing the air intake back into the collection cup. Is there a way you can separate the air intake from the collection cup and see if it improves? You’ll likely hear some gurgling noise. That’s the downside of the 115.

[aerotiy]

I’m going to try that now but if that doesn’t work I’m probably going to have to ditch it  I just bought a DROP.2 algae scrubber by Santa Monica Filtration. I’m hoping that it can replace the skimmer for removing nitrates and phosphates effectively.

[dandelion]

Heard algae scrubber can turn your water yellow though. Ready to add a ozone reactor to correct that? Haha.

 

try opening up the skimmer and cleaning it with an old toothbrush. Maybe run it over night in a bucket of tap water too. 

[StevieT]

POS skimmer, a water change will do so much more in this small of a tank. 

 

As with most, you get what you pay for. 

 

 

[aerotiy]

2 hours ago, StevieT said:

POS skimmer, a water change will do so much more in this small of a tank. 

 

As with most, you get what you pay for. 

 

 

Took me a while to realize that

[Jaremiah25]

I purchased this skimmer .. used it for 3 weeks max before it just stopped skimming and making this horrible noise .. wrote them an email and they said to take it back to the store .. so I did . Got another one ! Didn’t set it up right away cause I was disappointed with it . But when I did it didn’t work it . So I basically tossed it in the trash ! 60 dollars down the drain . 

[aerotiy]

22 minutes ago, Jaremiah25 said:

I purchased this skimmer .. used it for 3 weeks max before it just stopped skimming and making this horrible noise .. wrote them an email and they said to take it back to the store .. so I did . Got another one ! Didn’t set it up right away cause I was disappointed with it . But when I did it didn’t work it . So I basically tossed it in the trash ! 60 dollars down the drain . 

What did you end up replacing it with? I’m thinking that’s something I need to look into at this point.

[StevieT]

11 hours ago, aerotiy said:

What did you end up replacing it with? I’m thinking that’s something I need to look into at this point.

Media basket in chamber one.  Do water changes.  Have a beer, call it a day

[aerotiy]

2 hours ago, StevieT said:

Media basket in chamber one.  Do water changes.  Have a beer, call it a day

I have an intank media basket in chamber two already and 2 gallon weekly water changes don’t seem to be enough to keep my nitrates in check 

[StevieT]

41 minutes ago, aerotiy said:

I have an intank media basket in chamber two already and 2 gallon weekly water changes don’t seem to be enough to keep my nitrates in check 

 

What is in the basket?

Do you have any sponges?

BioBalls?

 

Are you feeding with the filter pump off?

Using RO/DI water?

Age of tank?

[aerotiy]

1 hour ago, StevieT said:

 

What is in the basket?

Do you have any sponges?

BioBalls?

 

Are you feeding with the filter pump off?

Using RO/DI water?

Age of tank?

Top of basket has a bag of purigen, center rack has a carbon bag, and the bottom has two layers of poly fiber filter floss. 

 

I am target feeding all the fish and shrimp with all pumps off, I do my best not to overfeed. 

 

I get RO/DI from my LFS and use RSCP salt. The tank is almost 3 months old.

[Jaremiah25]

media basket with the normal filter floss , purigen and chemipure elite .. 

hopefully my new tank can finish cycling so i can try and modify those chambers.

I would remove that skimmer and buy the chamber one media basket and keep the second chamber basket for a mini fuge . 

lets make Stevie T rich-ER

 

[Mazzy21]

aerotiy - everyone has their own style so here's just my 2cents but there are many ways to run a tank...

1st - after some time I think you will find that simpler is better; just less of a headache really. I'd ditch the ATO, and def that skimmer sounds like it isn't working out; I'd keep the media basket but rearrange - floss, carbon, purigen - and since your nitrates are high I would add GFO in the bottom of that as well with the purigen - and I'd buy a plastic pitcher, small enough to dip into your tank, then every couple days to a week I'd scoop, dump, and add a scoop of ready-made saltwater that hopefully you have room to keep out of sight but close by for convenience. If you go a week I'd do two scoops. The end.

The tank is small, it won't need much. Having to mess with equipment all the time will just get discouraging. In three months your tank may or may not have established itself enough to balance your stocking level. There are biological fluctuations in a small tank even adding just one new coral so don't stress the tests either. I mean, probably do better than I do, LOL, I can't remember the last time I tested water, but also don't sweat it. If everyone/thing looks good then they are good. It'll sort itself out faster IMO withOUT constant tinkering than if you keep panic-messing with it (we are all victims of that behavior when starting a tank, it isn't at all unique to you or a negative reflection on you). 

[TheBig053]

@aerotiy what ATO are you using and what chamber do you have the float/sensor in? 

 

I wouldn't recommend ditching the ATO, but rather figuring out why it almost overflowed the tank and correct it. Manually topping off is a PITA and can cause salinity fluctuations if you don't stay on top of it.

 

I also purchased the PS2 and ditched it after a few weeks. I run the inTank media basket in chamber one with filter foss on the top shelf, purigen on the second shelf, and I hang a bag of chemipure elite from the second shelf so it is suspended in the bottom of the basket. I don't it is as effective if you let it rest on the bottom of the chamber due to the way fluval designed the flow through each chamber. 

 

In chamber two, I cut a piece of egg crate to create a shelf to sit a small bag of GFO. The lip in chamber two the egg crate sits on forces water to pass through the GFO on its way from chamber 2 to chamber 3. This set up has worked well for me so far. 

 

 

[aerotiy]

2 hours ago, Mazzy21 said:

If everyone/thing looks good then they are good.

I have another thread going about this but I was testing the water every 5 days and everything was within recommended ranges and everyone seemed great so I just kept doing what I was doing. Few days ago calcium was looking low so I added a tiny amount once of seachem's 2-part. Then the next day I noticed my water was pretty cloudy so I tested again and this time magnesium was 1000 ppm! So I went to store and got something for that. I put some mag supplement in there and then everything started going even more downhill. My blasto coral began to close and shrivel on Thursday evening and by Friday morning was turning white. Also on Thursday evening my purple firefish who I've had for over 2 months started laying in the corner of the tank breathing heavily. I did an emergency water change and continued to watch him until I had to go to bed. Woke up early in the morning and he was gone.

 

At this point, I decided to test the water again and found that there was some ammonia in the tank. Went out to LFS to pick up some RO/DI water and did two 3 gallon water changes 6 hours apart so as not to shock the system. I was also adding prime to detoxify the ammonia and nitrite. Today, the blasto is still white and completely shrunken, my duncan is completely out as are my zoos and trumpet.

1 hour ago, TheBig053 said:

what ATO are you using and what chamber do you have the float/sensor in?

I am using the Tunze nano osmolator and it's in the last chamber where the return pump is located. It has been doing well so far and I make sure the sensor is clear weekly. It has a one-minute timer I believe to stop it from overflowing, I just think that my skimmer was pulling enough water from the tank that it was setting the sensor off too frequently.

 

I went ahead and purchased a reef glass nano protein skimmer after a bit of searching. Seems simple enough to use and I like that it won't add heat to my tank. I haven't looked too much at GFO but will.

 

 

I appreciate the advice everyone!

[TheBig053]

You really only need the GFO is you are having phosphate/algae issues. I am running it right now since I have some GHA creeping up even though phos is still testing zero on the salifert kit.

[aerotiy]

I was having algae problems which I guessed was my high nitrates so I was trying to bring them down with nopox 

[Mazzy21]

I feel like phosphate and nitrate go hand in hand. Algae eat both, they are both nutrients (as opposed to like Calcium which I'd label as a "building block" or magnesium which I'd label as a "metal" - even though technically you could call ALL "nutrients" of some kind), and I'm not sure if you can even have high phosphates without high nitrates. Maybe. I'm certainly no expert and I'm terrible at chemistry. lol But yeah... that's why I use GFO - to keep BOTH in check and use purigen also.

 

How big is your EVO? I agree with The BIG053 that topping off is a pain, but the EVOs I've seen are very small so the dip and dump method should keep your water pretty much filled without the need for topping off unless you take a lot of time between water changes. I have a 29 biocube and those cheap pumps constantly kept breaking on me for my ATO so finally I gave up on it. I top off when the return spits out microbubbles with a large plastic soda cup I got at a football game. lol

 

[ThisPlaceIsAPrison]

This makes me wonder about keeping the P2 in my new Fluval Evo 13.5.  I don't like the additional noise it creates, however; I am stuck with it and I'd rather not throw $60 away and then spend another $60 to buy the InTank Media Basket.  

[aerotiy]

5 hours ago, ThisPlaceIsAPrison said:

This makes me wonder about keeping the P2 in my new Fluval Evo 13.5.  I don't like the additional noise it creates, however; I am stuck with it and I'd rather not throw $60 away and then spend another $60 to buy the InTank Media Basket.  

I agree with you on not wanting to throw away the money; when I first got my Evo I went with what was recommended by the company even though I didn’t see that many great reviews on it. I tried for months to tune it properly but it was just such a pain and kept taking so much water out of my system, I was having trouble keeping salinity in check.

 

If you can mess around with it and get it tuned then more power to you haha but the noise never really goes away. I upgraded to this skimmer. It needs an air pump and there’s cheaper DIY versions out there but I’m not that handy and had some spending money so I went for it. 

 

I have the air pump sitting on a cloth and it is SO much quieter and nicer - I also like the fact that this skimmer design means no extra heat is added to the aquarium. It’s simple to control the air flow and water level with this skimmer and I’ve had a fantastic experience with it so far.

[EvilFish]

About the heat - this skimmer adds arround +1c heat in my tank.