V2 120 Nano Skimmer

[xxBarneyxx]

Well I picked up a second hand V2 120 nano skimmer today for £30. Got it in the display tank for the moment and its busy filling the place with microbubbles (this is normal I know until in beds in). The problem is I cant seem to get the bubbles in the collection cup to go down and the cup is filling up in about an hour. Doesnt matter how I adjust the "air valve" its seems to still be at the same level. I "think" I have it set to the lowest setting possible (all the air valve seems to do is turn a plastic bit that either deflects the bubbles to the collection cup or to the water outlet).

Is this normal on a new skimmer? I have the height of it set to 1cm below the surface as the instruction say. Cant find any other way to cut the amount of air going into it though. Any suggestions?

 

[BigC]

Position the unit up or down in the water until you get the bubbles accumulating in the collar area of the skimmer.
Takes a wee bit of tweaking this one. Once its going its actually quite good.
Regards
BigC

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Will have to have a play with it tomorrow. Hopefully will finally get round to building the stand for the fuge then it can go in there. If all else fails I will mod the air intake to put a valve on there (will give it a few days first though to see if it settles down). It did pull out some rather dirty looking water though so glad I got it.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Thanks big C that did it. I just had to raise it up quite high in the water (so the outflow was actually above the water line). Still needs so fine tuning but will be able to sort it from here

 

[BigC]

Glad you got it sorted Barney, One word on the unit though, I never get really dark thick skimate from the collection cup. which I empty and clean every 3 days. What I get is a greenish brown watery type skimate. But the cup needs some scrubbing to get it back clean again. Incidentally I use a toothbrush for this little task. I clean the whole unit every 3 months and you'll need to readjust to get rid of the micro bubble senario again.
Regards
BigC

 

[connorsbala]

BigC, im sure you maybe aware of this but anyways...do you dose your tank with live plankton? If so, do you leave the skimmer on while doing so? If you do, the skimmer will remove the plankton from the water, hence the greeny brown liquid in the collection cup....
Im sure you do this but yeah, thought i'd mention it

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah got mine running reasonably well now and its exactly as you describe (greeny/brown water). Actually pretty surprised how much its removing!

 

[BigC]

Yeah Barney,
Folks often say thet you dont need to skim a Nano, not so I say, going by the evidence in the collection cup you do need to skim, Infact I would even like to go larger with an external hang on skimmer for the sump but there might be an even greater issue with microbubbles in such a confined space. If some bright spark could come up with some contraption or material that could collect such bubbles then they'd make a fortune. It may be something simple as a directional attachment to the outflow and a collection device made from an absorbant material. LOL (mind workin overtime again)
To CB,
Yeah I turn the skimmer off for an hour or so whilst feeding Live photoplankton.
Regards
BigC

 

[ben1987]

V2 400 and above come with a special bubble stop that i dont think the nano got? Like a little blox filled with a fine media that takes out the bubbles, works aswel. You may be able to find just that part on ebay?

 

[Trod]

I love this debate 'to run protein skimmer or not'
I was getting the same stuff as BigC coming through mine, even though I turned it off when adding phytoplankton. so decided to turn it off completely, I have been running tank without it for around a month now everything is still ok and had no problems so far. touch wood

 

[BigC]

Its not the fact that you may or may not get problems with not skimming Trod, I just feel that by skimming and noticing what comes from the tank into the collection cup merits the need to. I feel a whole lot happier knowing that gunk will be manually eradicated than letting it build up and maybe cause problems at a later date.

V2 400 and above come with a special bubble stop

Cheers Ben, may look towards that one.

Regards
BigC

 

[connorsbala]

I added mine last night to find it sending out tonnes of bubbles and being very noisy. The water outlet is 1cm below the water level as in the instructions etc and its just sending out loads of microbubbles and its making like a slurping noise. I setup last night but couldnt leave it on as its sooo noisy! SO i turned it on this morning and when i got home it was exactly the same, except some dirty water was in the collection cup...
Anyone know how i can sort out the bubbles?

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Replied to your PM mate. Posted here just in case anyone else is having the same problem.

Mine is still chucking a fair amount of micro bubbles into the water but this apprently gets better after awhile. If it dont the bigger v2 skimmers have a bubble stop add on so may be able to get one of then to fit on there (or diy something to do it).

It does make a bit of noise but not too bad. It sounds like you might just need to play around with the height of it a bit (I think you might have it slightly too low in the water so its sucking water in through the air hole).

If you look at it from the back with the little knob on the left hand side the air hole is on the right hand side near the collection cup. Make sure this is above the water line.

The control knob basically funnels the bubbles either into the collection cup or out through the outlet. If you look in through the side of the skimmer you will see as you turn it there is a little plastic bit in there. To get the least amount of bubbles from the outlet turn it so the plastic bit completely covers the water outlet. Then move the skimmer up or down in the water column until the bubbles go about halfway up the collection cup.

the water outlet on mine is almost completely out of the water which has got the best results for me so far. It will take some messing with to get it sorted though and just try to ignore the microbubbles in the tank for a week and they should (so I have been told) go away.

Let me know how it goes, im still messing around with mine at the moment but will be putting it into a fuge at the weekend so the bubbles wont really matter.

 

[BigC]

All of the above and place a piece of airline on the air intake nipple on the left shoulder of the unit will quieten it somewhat.
Regards
BigC

 

[ben1987]

Its not the fact that you may or may not get problems with not skimming Trod, I just feel that by skimming and noticing what comes from the tank into the collection cup merits the need to. I feel a whole lot happier knowing that gunk will be manually eradicated than letting it build up and maybe cause problems at a later date.

V2 400 and above come with a special bubble stop

Cheers Ben, may look towards that one.

Regards
BigC

If you dont find one ill give you mine, got an idea for sending the outlet hose on the skimmer over a mini DSB so im not using it anyway