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Trouble with my sump and possibly plumbing

J

Jon

My tank is now three months old and I am dieying to add coral to it but there is just one problem. I have a huge amount of bubbles in my tank coming from the sump. I have an Oceanic model 1 sump and if you are not familiar with the sump I will explain it to you. The sump consists of one huge chamber, than a micro dam, than a small chamber for the return pump. I have converted the 1st chamber into a refugium and the last chamber has my quiet one return pump and a Tunze 9010 protein skimmer. I think the bubbles are coming from the protein skimmer, even though I have the filter media around the top where the water returns.

I really want the bubbles to disappear and need someones help. I live in Pitman NJ 08071 and am willing to pay for your help (friendly prices please for a fellow reefer). If you think that I may need a new sump than that is fine. I also have a 20 gallon AGA homemade sump. I know this sump works but am not sure it will eliminate my bubble problem. If you are familiar with how to modify homemade sumps and eliminate bubbles than please shoot me a PM. Again I think I need someone local in South Jersey to come and take a look at everything. I have run out of ideas.

Thanks - Jon
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

why not just shut down the tunze and see if that resolves the bubbles. If not - then you know it's not the skimmer.

If you eliminate the skimmer as the potential issue - then the next thing to consider is if the return pump is somehow sucking air.

Another thought is if the overflow crashing into your refugium is generating a lot of bubbles or not. - do you have filter sock on it? you could also try that.
 
J

Jon

Thanks for the suggestions hawkeye.

I turned off the protein skimmer and it eliminated about 98% of the bubbles.

So what next? I specifically bought this skimmer because of its size and its good brand. It skims my tank very well.

I have heard that you can run your protein skimmer at night only is this an option or is there something that I can do to the protein skimmer to eliminate the bubbles?

Thanks - Jon
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

no exp with the skimmer - but is there a specific depth it should be in the sump? How deep do you have it currently?
 
J

Jon

The skimmer is always in atleast 8 - 11 inches of water. I think it specifies it should be in atleast 3.5 inches of water where the intake is at the bottom of the skimmer. I am going to take it out and have a look at it. Maybe something is loose etc. If I can't find anything abnormal with it I may take the return pipe off of it and just have the water return as if it were on hang on skimmer. The skimmer has attachments so that it can be used either way.

Thanks for you suggestions and I will get back to all of you in the next day or two.

Jon
 
C

cmsurfr22

a picture would help out a ton, is there anyway to have the output of the skimmer dump into the fuge so the microbubles don't make it into the same chamber as the pump?
 
J

Jon

That is a great idea. I will try to get some tubing that will fit around my outlet pipe and will have it dump over the ledge and into the refugium.

I will let you know how it works out - Jon
 
J

Jon

Well I finally fixed the problem today. Over the pat two days I have tried everything that was suggested to me and anything else that I could think of. Today I finally bit the bullet and reconfigured my spare homemade sump, bought a few items for it and switched the sumps. The new sump is actually much quieter, it's easier to access the protein skimmer and my display tank is 100% bubble free. Thanks for all of your suggestions.

Jon
 
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