Need Help with Skimmer

[Lord Mort]

Hi all.
I've had a 75g reef going for a year with a few misc problems.

The latest battle was with phosphates. So, per someones suggestion, I got a phos ban reactor and used ROWA phos in it.

Apparently, the pads that come with the reactor are not fine enough to stop a large portion of the rowaphos from entering the tank.

That shouldn't be a big deal BUT, my skimmer is now lined with a brown slime that is the same shade as the rowaphos.

It's pretty slick and I'm fairly certain that this is the cause for my skimmer to stop functioning.

It is an Aqua-C EV-120 and the air valve WAS adjusted to 40% closed to get the right foaming action. Now, it wont foam even with the air valve open all the way.

I guess my main question is, what the hell should I clean the skimmer with. They say not to use soap.

Also, how do I stop this from happening in the future.

TIA

~Mort

[gialitt]

i would try vinegar. rinse well.

[yarsrevenge]

Remove and a dry paper towel?

[Lessa]

a new toothbrush

[Julio]

the vinegar solution would be best to remove residue, why don't you have a seperate phosphate filter to run your Rowaphos?

[Lord Mort]

why don't you have a seperate phosphate filter to run your Rowaphos?

I thought that the reactor that I mentioned is a phosphate filter. You just add the media.

Are you talking about something else?

~Mort

[Lord Mort]

Well, it turned out that my air valve was plugged. It looks like salt creep inside the valve but as soon as I removed the valve, water started shooting up the column.

I cleaned the valve out and all seems fine.

Must have just been a coincedence with the rowaphos.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

I'd still like to hear from you julio.

~Mort

[Doppler]

I had the same problem with my reactor i added a extra pre filter pad to the output.My skimmer was all brown but it came right off with water and a bottle brush