- Today's problem, my protein skimmer
isn't pulling enough crap out of my tank.
- Well, we've got the top 10 things to make that old news.
(upbeat music)
- This is BRStv Problem Solvers.
If low protein skimmer performance
and related high nutrients is your problem,
this video is the solution.
Today, we have five solutions to those problems,
and then five reasons why those solutions are going to work.
Starting with number one,
if your skimmer's just a boiling pot
of milky foam with tons of bubbles
but it's not really producing anything
that's collecting in the cup,
the solution is to turn down the amount of air
until you reach a stable foam head.
DC is probably the best option for this.
You could also lower your sump level down
so your skimmer is not sitting in as much water.
Same thing, put a skimmer on a stand
so it's not sitting in as deep of water,
or you can use an air valve if you don't have a DC pump.
- [Randy] All right, so number two.
The why that works.
- The reason for that is essentially the skimmer
or the foam engine is running too lean.
Meaning way, way, way too much air and none of the fuel.
And in this case the fuel being the organics.
All of the broken down food
and everything that creates a bubble.
And what happens when we have too much air
and not enough organics it
is it creates a really thin weak bubble
that just pops instantly,
and so you'll see that boiling pot
of water essentially in the top of it,
but it's not producing anything.
And so when we actually decrease the amount of air
what happens is that it gives it more time
to hold a thick stable head and you will see it pull over.
Now, there are four reasons
as to why the four things that he said work.
First, if you have a DC pump,
you can actually just turn down the speed of the pump
and it will turn down the amount of air and water
that's being sucked into it,
is probably the easiest method.
You can also use an air valve on it
which you can just turn down the amount of air
that it sucks in.
However, note you're actually at the same time now
increasing the amount of water at the same time.
So air valve on an AC pump will work in a pinch
just not always the best option.
Another option is to lower the water level in the sump down.
And so what will happen when you lower the water level
is now there's more head pressure,
which means the pump is working harder,
which means that it will suck in both less water
and less air as well.
And that's also why you see Eshopps
makes those things you can put them on, the little stands.
All right, so when you raise it up in the sump
you're also going to decrease the amount of air
and the amount of water
that's being injected into the skimmer.
So all of those options will work really well.
DC being the easiest and best
but if you're just seeing a boiling pot of water in here
you know you feed a lot
and the skimmers just not producing anything,
almost certainly like 90% of the time.
It means you're just pumping in too much air
and more air isn't better.
- Number three, what if your skimmer it kinda works.
There's a stable head of foam
and every so often some of that
will go into the collection cup,
but really not as much as you hope
and no matter how much you adjust the gate valve
or the wedge pipe still will not collect into the skimmer.
The answer is to increase the air.
It push the button on the DC skimmer, increase the air.
You can even reduce the head pressure
by filling up your sump a little more.
So it sits in higher water, or if you have an AC pump,
you are probably at the end of your how much air
you can put in
which means it might be time to think about swapping
your skimmer.
- And number four, why tuning the air up
actually works in this case.
In this case what you have is a ton of thick foam
that just isn't making it over the edge
and it's because that foam is just too thick
and there isn't enough air velocity
to push it over the edge as well.
So we add in more air, we'll thin out or wet in the foam
and we'll also add the air velocity
that actually causes it to go over the edge.
This is what happens when you tune your foam engine
to the amount of organics, to that air to the organic ratio
and then instead of having a boiling pot of water
that does nothing
or a bunch of thick foam that just kinda collects
inside of the neck instead of in the cup,
we'll find that sweet spot
where you get a consistent amount of organic reduction
by floating over the edge,
and a nice wet foam that happens 24/7.
- All right, number five, you've adjusted your gate valve,
you adjusted your wedge pipe,
and as soon as the water level rises
your skimmer just seems to stop working.
The answer is try setting the water height first
about the top of the skimmer.
So typically where the cup separates from the body
and then go adjust the air to get it to the right foam,
wet or dry to collect in the cup.
- And number six, why using the wedge pipes
and the gate valves doesn't always work?.
So What Randy says actually does.
And a lot of people think of the gate valve
or changing the water level in here
is making wet or dry ski mate, and it doesn't do that.
It just changes the water level at which you collected.
The difference between wet and dry
is how much air and water is in there.
If you have a lot of air will be wet
and if you have a little bit of air it will be dry.
So changing the wet and dry
is more about the foam engine and the height
that you collected.
So in this case what happens is
if I choose use this gate valve or the wedge pipe
to change the water level inside the skimmer,
I'm going to increase head pressure,
which is actually going to reduce the amount of water
and air being injected into the skimmer
often by as much as half.
And so if I'm using this to tune it and change it,
what I'm actually doing
is not just changing the water height level
that I collected,
I'm changing the type foam at the same time
and these two things like,
that's why when you go to set it up
and you're like, oh, I finally found it.
You come back a half hour later and it's totally not right
and you have to just keep tuning it
over and over and over again, this is why.
Stop tuning the gate valve and wedge pipe.
Just get that water level right where you want it
with the gate valve
and then adjust the air to the type of foam you wanna create
and how you collect it.
- Number seven.
So it seems like my skimmer is working, it's collecting,
but it just doesn't smell like organic waste or fish poo.
This is a sign of a poorly tuned skimmer,
an ineffective skimmer,
or one that's just improperly sized for your tank.
So the solution try tuning it,
tune it to the ways that we do,
adjust the water height, increase or decrease the air.
Really spend some time tuning this thing
and if that doesn't work,
it's time to consider changing solutions,
potentially changing out your skimmer.
- All right, Number eight.
Why is that true and why should I actually be disappointed
if it doesn't stink?
Well, decaying organic matter and fish turds do stink.
They're supposed to stink.
And in fact, if they don't stink
you should be concerned about the performance of this tool.
There's no reason that it wouldn't.
And in fact, the smell might be one of the best indicators
that it's actually working.
Meaning that if I lift it up, it should smell.
In fact, what's happening really here
is this whole cup is collecting turds
and blowing air out the top.
It should actually smell probably inside of the sump area.
Usually it doesn't leak out into the sump
because it's recirculating the air
inside of the stand there, but it should smell.
And in fact, if you take the lid off and clean it,
somebody in the other room should say what happened
and if they don't, it's probably not sized right
or tuned right.
But really the smell that this thing produces
is probably one of the best possible indicators
that it's working.
- Number nine, I listened to everything you guys said,
tried everything in the book
and it's still can't get my skimmer to perform.
Well, there's two steps.
One, if you use filter socks
and you never change them out, change them with mesh socks.
Use mesh socks instead.
And the second one,
if you think that your skimmer is too large for your tank,
you just got the biggest one that would fit in that chamber,
you're probably right.
It might be too big.
- All right, number 10.
The reason those two things are probably true.
If you just can't tune the skimmer, no matter what we say,
it isn't because the skimmer is broken
and there's no air, or foam, or anything in there.
It's because something else is probably wrong
with the skimmer
and the first one is is you're probably starving it
of organics with those filter socks.
Now, if you change out your filter socks every three days,
this is its own source of nutrient export.
So be happy with the fact you're capturing
a lot of that stuff before it rots and decays
and would get into the type of particle
that a skimmer would remove.
But if you just actually leave the filter socks in there
until they overflow and you just let everything rot,
basically what you're having
is a little nitrate and phosphate factory
inside the filter sock,
where everything decays and breaks down totally in there
and doesn't even give your skimmer a chance to pull it out.
And if you're wondering if that's true,
just pull the filter socks out,
replace them with the mesh type
that will catch some things in there
but let most of it actually pass right through.
If your skimmer starts working immediately,
that's definitely the problem.
The second part of that is actually kind of hard to stomach,
but the fact is if you're going to size your skimmer
too big or too small, the right answer is perfect,
but perfect is pretty hard to hit.
So go too small because if you get too big of a skimmer
what happens is you get too much air
for the amount of organics,
the amount of food you put in there,
amount of fish you have,
and you have too big of a neck.
The neck is the size of a coffee can
instead of a pop can and it just doesn't work.
It doesn't produce enough foam.
It doesn't collect the foam.
So going too big is actually one of the biggest problems
with trying to get a skimmer that works.
In fact, a small skimmer will almost always work.
It just won't pull out as much as you would like.
So in most cases
I think most people would just have something
that works all the time, maybe not perfectly
than something that never works all the time.
So I hate to say it, but you might've bought too big
and you should scale down.
One thing to say here though,
DC skimmers again often will help you.
If you can get that sweet spot
somewhere in the middle of those tunes,
it will actually help you transverse from,
when I have two fish and just a couple of pellets
all the way to when they have 20 fish
and I'm just dumping food in there ,
because I do want a skimmer
that travels with the entire journey
that I have with my tank, not just the specific points.
I wanted to work in the beginning
and I want it to work at the end.
It's so crappy skimmer performance solved, what's next?
- I actually tested the tuning the air for dry
versus wet skimmer performance
and how that actually worked out.
You can see that one right over here.
- And a lot of people ask what's better,
dry foam or wet foam?
Which one is going to remove more organics?
And there's a DIY test you can do at home right here.