- Today we show you how the optimal way to tune your skimmer
for peak performance,
not just collecting most waste and cleaning the tank,
but doing it in a stable manner with as little tweaking
as possible all in five minutes or less.
(upbeat music)
Hey this is Ryan with BRStv's five minute guide to skimmers.
This protein skimmer mini series
is filled with direct answers to the most common questions
because information should never be a barrier
to getting the most out of your skimmer.
This week we show you how to tune the skimmer,
actual information, improve performance, water quality
and ease of system maintenance.
The challenge with tuning skimmers
is skimmers actually come with very little information
on how to use them
and what the factors are the affect performance.
So how do you use them
and how do you know when it's working?
I know this can be a challenge
because it's something that I struggled with
for more than a decade as well.
Why does some skimmers just work
the moment that you plug them in,
the exact same skimmer doesn't do that for someone else?
Why are some constantly overflowing
or require frequent tweaking to get right?
There are a few things I'm gonna say right off the bad.
For decades we've all been told more air is better
and the best way to tune wet versus dry skimming
is adjust the water level with a gate valve or riser pipe.
I believe those two statements to be just a small part
of an overall picture that most of us have been overlooking
some pretty obvious performance or tuning factors.
By the end of today's video,
I think you're all going to agree,
I think at the heart of this you need to think of a skimmer
as a foam engine designed to produce and collect
organic laden foam.
Most of you are familiar with a standard combustion engine
that mixes air or oxygen and fuel
in a controlled reaction chamber to create
a desired burst of energy.
A skimmer can be thought of in a similar manner.
We're mixing air and organic waste or fuel
to produce a stable foam head
inside a controlled reaction chamber
being the skimmer neck.
Whether you're talking about a car engine
or a protein skimmer real tuning is about adjusting
that air to fuel ratio to optimal performance.
With a combustion engine,
if you add too much fuel it's called burning rich,
which can dirty the engine, reduce performance,
or actually flood the engine and stop working.
However, if it's too little fuel,
it's called burning lean
which can produce inconsistent performance
and often stall out.
The same thing can happen on a protein skimmer
and we're going to use the exact same terminology
when tuning our skimmers,
running rich, and running lean.
Once you know what to look for
the signs of running your protein skimmer organic rich
or lean are easy to spot.
In the case of a protein skimmer,
the fish waste, uneaten food and organics are the fuel.
Running a skimmer rich with too much fuel or waste
and not enough air will look like this.
Dirty brown foam, this slowly rises,
often has visible chunks in it
and collects a ton of gunk inside the cylinder,
but most of the foam fails to rise
and very little foam finds it way into the collection cup.
The concentration of brown water, floating chunks and paste
add to the challenge and cause the skimmer
to run even richer,
the engine effectively floods and most of the organics
end up sticking to the cylinder or reaction chamber walls.
In this case though,
cleaning the paste inside this skimmer's neck
can still be an effective way to export organics
from the tank but the foam engine is obviously
running less than optimally.
If you're running organic rich,
there are two solutions.
The first is in some cases
you can use the gate or riser valve
to raise the water level inside the skimmer
and shrink the foam production chamber.
In this case you may still be running rich
and missing some opportunity
but it will help collect more the foam and a decent option.
The other option is add more air
and find that optimal mix
for the amount of organics inside your tank.
When you find that optimal tuning mix,
the performance will often look
like a steady stream of foam
producing a stable frothy head
that consistently flows over into the cup.
In this case because the optimal engine performance
you won't see as much of the organic
collecting inside the neck.
The foam will often be wider,
fewer chunks floating around
and a cleaner operating piece of equipment.
I'm gonna tell you how to adjust the air in just a moment,
but what about when a skimmer's running lean
meaning not often organics
for the amount of air in the skimmer
and a sure sign of a oversize skimmer,
this is probably the easiest to spot.
Milky white, thick bubbles, top to bottom of the skimmer,
tons of bubbles in the neck rising super fast.
But rather than creating organic laden foam,
it's more like a boiling pot of water
where all the bubbles burst immediately at the top.
In this case in running lean,
what's happening is there isn't enough organics in the tank
to support that amount of air.
The net results is a deficient amount of organics
for the foam engine causes a fragile bubble
the high velocity of air leaving the skimmer neck
causes all the bubbles to pop before they can create
that stable foam head,
hence why it looks like a boiling pot of water
rather than a foam engine.
If you're running organic or fuel lean,
there are two ways to address this as well.
First you can use that gate to riser valve
to increase the water level inside the skimmer
in hopes of catching some of the bubbles
before they pop.
However in this case, you're probably going to find
very erratic results
where the skimmer randomly overflows a lot.
Likely hours after feeding
when there's an increase amount of organics
or fuel for the engine.
Alternatively, the second option is
you can just reduce the amount of air feeding the skimmer
and match it to your feeding habits,
fish load and overall organic input.
I believe this is going to produce the best results.
Now that we know how the skimmer's foam engine works,
what are the best way to tune that fuel to air ratio
and achieve optimal performance.
Luckily, I called most of this pretty straight forward.
First, start by making sure you install the skimmer
at the recommended water height.
This matters because water height changes head pressure
and pump performance.
In our experiments, we found water height to have
a dramatic impact on the smaller skimmers
and lower wattage pumps in particular.
Water height matters.
If you toss the instructions
most of them can be found on our site
or the manufacturer websites often have the instructions
you can download as well.
From that point, use the gator riser tube
to collect the foam to the best it can.
Over the next couple weeks, make adjustments as necessary.
At that point you'll likely see the signs
of either optimal performance
or signs of running organic lean or rich.
If you're seeing signs or running organic rich,
there are a few options to add more air to the skimmer.
The fist is simply raise the water level in your sump
an inch at at time which effectively
reduces head pressure on the pump,
increases the amount of air it injects
and again this is particularly effective on smaller skimmers
and lower wattage pumps.
Related to that, make sure to keep the pump clean.
The pump runs optimally as well as clean the ventory port
because it's common for them to get partially clogged.
Outside that if you happen to have
an adjustable dc skimmer pump,
there's an opportunity to increase the amount of air
with a simple click of a button.
Increasing the pump speed increases the air
and by far the easiest way to do this.
Outside of those adjustments,
if you're still seeing signs of running organic rich,
you may simply have a skimmer
under size for your organic input.
As long as it's preforming to your desires
and nitrate and phosphate levels are not continually rising
or out of control, I probably wouldn't replace it,
but you now know what to look for
when you upgrade your system and more air
and preferably an option that allows you adjust the air.
Running lean meaning not enough organics or too much air
for your organic load is something entirely different.
This is much easier to adjust
and likely a much more common tuning challenge
with today's high powered performance skimmers.
Again, the signs of running lean is a ton of bubbles
rapidly rising but they all burst at the top.
More like a boiling pot of water
than a foam production collection.
In this case we're gonna tune down
the amount of air injected
and leaving the skimmer through the neck.
One of the primary benefits here
is reducing the air injection, and the bubbles,
they'll rise slower, few of them will pop prematurely,
and you'll start to produce a foam head,
match the amount of organics in the tank.
Tuning the air down can be done
by decreasing the sump water level,
which increases head pressure on the skimmer pump.
You can also just put a valve on the air line.
A common way to do that is a 3/8" merlock valve
with a stem to barb adapters.
Note when you turn down the air,
you will also increase the water flow feeding the skimmer
so this only works to a point
and maybe half the air reduction.
After that you might see micro bubbles leaving the skimmer
and other difficulties tuning.
There're actually skimmers out there
that have air tuning built into the skimmer itself,
like the skims which actually have the valve
built into the silencer for easy tuning.
If you have a dc skimmer, however,
you can use the control pad
to decrease the speed of the pump
which will slow down the water flow
and air draw at the same time.
So tuning the air means start at the top speed
then tune the water height to the best of your ability
with a gate or stand pipe.
Leave it alone for a few hours or even a day
and then slow the pump down one step with the control pad
and monitor the results,
repeating until the skimmer's optimized to your system
and organic level input.
In any case, once the air to organic ratio is achieved
and match the right size of reaction chamber,
creating that desired type of foam
a nice stable foam head that maintains shape and rises.
Then just use the gate or riser tube to adjust
how that foam is collected.
The factor that we didn't talk about yet is
proper sizing of the skimmer and matching it to your tank.
I think you'll be surprised how many factors go into
getting that right and that's going to be our next topic.
You can find the entire skimmer mini series
right here because information should never be a barrier
to gain the most out of your skimmer.