[slief]

Originally Posted by lee_d_m

Hi,

thanks for the detailed reply. I've lowered in the sump now by a couple of inches and will give it a bit of time to adjust. Now, when I open the wedge pipe fully the water inside the skimmer is about halfway up the collection cup. The bubbles look quite wet at the moment and there's no foam head forming, but I'll check it in a couple of hours and see what it's like.

It will take some time to settle in. That said, I wouldn't have dropped your sump level. That is counter productive as the lower power setting will decrease the water level inside the skimmer. From the sounds of it, you didn't lower the pump level? The 36 watts you are running will result is fast bursting bubbles that will generate very wet skim and not very efficient organic removal.

As I said in my original post, I would decrease the pump speed to 30 watts and you will likely need this skimmer in deeper water and by lowering your sump level, you made it shallower. As such, I would raise the water back to 8" or even 8.5", lower your pump speed to 30 watts. I would also suggest opening the wedge pipe so that it's wide open and give it several or more hours to settle in. Then check where the water/bubbles start to turn to foam. If that transition is just above the base of the neck, let it run for a bit and see how it produces. If it's not, close the wedge pipe some but try not to exceed half closed. If you need to go more than 1/2 closed on the wedge pipe, open the wedge up all the way and raise your sump 1/4" and let it settle back in to see where the level is in the neck. If the foam level is still low, close the wedge pipe some to see if you can get it up into the neck without having to go past 1/2 closed on the wedge. Continue to do this until you find the right sump level. You have a very low load for this skimmer so you will need a higher sump level that others but the slower pump speed will result in much better foam which is what you are after.