Coralife Super Skimmer...

[Mr.September15]

How the hell do you set up the super skimmer?! I've done everything except that dam rubber piece that you put on the pump and the intake. How is the flippin' thing supposed to fit on the pump when there both the same diameter

 

[Mr.September15]

BUMP

 

[Mr.September15]

Alrighty, I just got it all set up and stuff. I used boiling water to soften up the rubber a bit. My new question is can I replace the pump with something smaller?? Its so huge that I couldn't even fit the bubble diffuser! Is the bubble diffuser necessary? Right now 'm playing with the controlling the water intake and stuff. Noticed that if you turn the red knob too much it overflows. Any help??

 

[ikon]

this thing gave me nothing but problems which is why i chose the remora over it..at first i got everything set up and didnt get a single bubble..tried to hook a small air pump to the venturi and all it did was push air bubbles backwards out of the powerhead!!..left the house for a few hours came back and the floor was flooded, thought my tank was leaking then found that water was slowly leaking out of the small venturi opening on the top (pay attention to that)..plugged that off in the evening, watched it for a few hours, then went to bed and woke up to a flooded floor again, this time it was the collection cup overflowing! must have drained about 3-4 gallons onto the floor over the course of the night..and it didnt make any sense because i had the thing running all of the prior day with the same flow in/flow out settings and it wasnt filling up..until i went to bed...

all in all the thing was too bulky, too complicated, and even too noisy every now and then id have to give it a little nudge to shut up...so far with my remora i get constant foam and skimmate and no water on the floor. my advice to you would be to watch the hell out of it and dont let it drain your tank!

 

[SkiFletch]

Ok, every tank and every skimmer is a different setup, so you really have to learn how they work. Everything starts at the pump. It sucks in water and air via the little air line. A good skimmer like the coralife has a very nice needlewheel impeller design that chops the air up very finely into lots of mini bubbles. This air/water mix is then ejected out of the pump and up towards the reaction chamber. Before that, there is a control valve that allows you to slow down the flowrate into the skimmer. The air water mixture goes into the skimmer and foams up in the reaction chamber. Then water exits the reaction chamber through the bottom, up and out the other tube which has that red valve on it. When you close the red valve, it increases the back pressure on the reaction chamber and raises the water level there. When you open the valve, you lower the back pressure and the water level falls in the reaction chamber. If the water level is too high, you'll overflow the cup. If its too low bubbles won't rise to the top and break at the surface, so its a bit of a balancing act to follow. The bubble diffuser is supposed to aid in removing bubbles if excess air/foam is entering the reaction chamber and has time to get out of the exit pipe. This is the problem Ranger was having, but he seemed to solve his.

In your case, if your bubble volume is small and not exiting the reaction chamber, you dont need the diffuser. You'll just want to open up the red valve to lower the air-water interface so that the collection cup doesnt overflow. If you have the air-water boundry high in the cup near the top of the neck you will skim whats known as "wet" skimmeing. this means you remove a lot of waste from teh water but also a lot of saltwater with it. If you have the air-water interface near the bottom of the collection cup neck you will "dry" skim. Dry skimming removes thick brown nasty skimmate and not much saltwater with it. There are tons of arguments as to which is better. I tend to skim a little more dry than wet just to account for any possible overflowing of the cup.

 

[Mr.September15]

So is water supposed to be in the collection cup or is just the bubbles? I was playing around with it and put my finger over the air inlet on the tube thingy thats connected to the pump that allows bubbles to be made. I gave up on my super skimmer till later when I have the time to actually take the time to look at it.

 

[Ranger]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah... setting up that thing is a PITA. Ok, so your problem is that you have WATER shooting into the collection cup or there are just so many bubbles that they quickly fill it up? (BTW the bubbles will condense into water upon entering the collection cup) Either way, your going to want to open the outlet valve(red knob). Yeah I know the pump is huge, but it works well. Which rubber hosing are you using? The long one or the short one? I think the skimmer is poorly designed in terms of fitting... because it is IMPOSSIBLE to have the bubble diffuser next to the pump. One of the reasons I got rid of it entirely, let me know if you want instruction on how to make a bubbler diffuser mod that works/fits better. Don't give up on it because of this, it is a FANTASTIC skimmer.

 

[Mr.September15]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah... setting up that thing is a PITA. Ok, so your problem is that you have WATER shooting into the collection cup or there are just so many bubbles that they quickly fill it up? (BTW the bubbles will condense into water upon entering the collection cup) Either way, your going to want to open the outlet valve(red knob). Yeah I know the pump is huge, but it works well. Which rubber hosing are you using? The long one or the short one? I think the skimmer is poorly designed in terms of fitting... because it is IMPOSSIBLE to have the bubble diffuser next to the pump. One of the reasons I got rid of it entirely, let me know if you want instruction on how to make a bubbler diffuser mod that works/fits better. Don't give up on it because of this, it is a FANTASTIC skimmer.

I'm not that handy but I can try. I totally agree that you can fit the 2 together right beside each other! I think I've read somewhere that you can get a smaller pump that will work with it. But I already fit the small plastic thing.

 

[Mr.September15]

This is how its looking right now:

Again does anyonek now if I can replace the pump with a smaller pump??

 

[Mr.September15]

URGH! Update:

Well my #### skimmer did it agian. It leaked all over the back of my tank which makes it almost impoosible to clean up. I'm giving up on this piece of shyt!$@#$@!. Too bad I can't return it or anything. I guess I'll resell it locally. Then my #### powerhead decided to fall over and pick the dirt up from the sand and now my tank is a big pile of ####. My fish are stressed to point that there eyes look crazy. So now im going skimmerless as skimmers are gay. Thanks for the help anyways.

Sorry for the rant. I'll just keep it away for a very very very long time.

 

[Ranger]

Bad day . I've had my share of those. Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Good luck with your tank

 

[Mr.September15]

Do the moderators edit your naughty words for you?? I came back to this thread to fix my french and its fixed for me

 

[Ranger]

I believe they change it when they see it. I don't think its on a automated processor or anything though.

EDIT: Personally I try to refrain from using "naughty words", lol.

 

[Mr.September15]

I believe they change it when they see it. I don't think its on a automated processor or anything though.

EDIT: Personally I try to refrain from using "naughty words", lol.

It matched the rant tho

 

[SkiFletch]

Yikes, that was a little high on the bubbles in the cup. Sorry to hear about your misfortunes, hope things get better for ya.

And the editing of dirty language is automatic here