skimmer?
 

i went on vacation left my tank attended by a novice she did a good job with the feeding etc...... only thing my skimmer was on but the water level in the skimmer was real low.i put it back to the regular level and it was foaming like crazy. my question is if the skimmer wasnt dumping foam in the collection cup could that have made my nitrates go up. what i mean is the level was so low it didnt even reach the neck of the skimmer.

Yes and no. Yes, because if it wasn't dumping the foam in the cup, it wasn't removing the waste that increases phosphates/nitrates. No, because the water being pumped through the skimmer should have created foam, so long as the pump was submerged in the water... what do you mean by 'neck of the skimmer'?

yes the skimmer was skimming but the water level was no where near the top.u know the water line should be atleast below the collection cup. the skimmer has an adjustment valve it was on the lowest flow side so it didnt reach the top

I wouldn't worry about it. As long as everything checks out now, those days when you were gone are counted as not skimming. Which can be a good thing. How does everything look?

did my tests only nitrates where high did a water change used amquel