[slief]

Originally Posted by Scythanith

Ok I will try to fill in the blanks

Skimmer: BK DC 250 with RD3
Tank: 270g display with 2 x ~40g sumps
Fish load: light (marine betta, magnificent foxface, longnosed hawkfish, 2x golden rhomboid wrasse, sandy basslet, royal gramma, yellow tang)

The RD3 runs at full watts. the skimmer is sitting in a smidge over 10" of water. If I dial the watts down, then the skimmer will not fill the reaction chamber high enough to do as you say it should. That's even with the wedge nearly closed shut. Even now running the RD3 at full power I have the wedge closed about 75% or more.

I just thought it was weird when I read all of your descriptions of running your pumps at a lower wattage.

When I get home I can dial down the wattage and see what happens again.

You really don't have much of a load in your system and very little dissolved organics which is why you have to run the skimmer so deep to get the foam up into the neck. The lower pump setting will provide better foam but you may have to run the skimmer deeper as a result or live wih inconsistency. The 250mm skimmers do best at 37 watts but they still need dissolved organics for proper foam fractioning. I have the same size skimmer although it's a supermarin and I have 60 fish to feed that skimmer. Many of which are large tangs.