Skimmer Questions?? NW-200

[Gregsgsr]

I have been having issues of where the riser tube should be placed. I have noticed that it only performs when the bubbles are at the top of collection cup.. It is hard to explain, but that means the riser tube is pretty high. I have to pull the riser tube pretty high until bubbles totally fill the inside tubing of the collection cup before it will skim decent. What do i need to do. My bubbles are also really fine. Shouldn't they be bigger...

[luke33]

Greg, how old is the skimmer. You don't want the bubbles going all the way up to the top of the riser tube. I'd put the bubble line at the bottom or 1/4" from the bottom of the riser tube. Very fine bubbles are what your looking for. The reaction chamber should be fairly full of bubbles. If you take a pic it would help.

[mg426]

Sounds like its not broken in yet.

[t-bone2]

mine is the same way the riser tube is maxed out at tall as i can get it which puts the water half way up the riser tube its over a month old when i have the water level down to the bottom of the tube it make nice foam but only fills the tube and never really pushes it out its on a 200 gal which has a light load for 5 yrs and never a skimmer

[seanndenise1]

it needs to be sitting in at least 10 inches of water if you dont have it modded

[t-bone2]

mines been mesh modded but only in 9 in of water

[luke33]

I don't agree it needs to be in 10" of water. If the pump has over an inch of water above it, it should work. I think the problem is lying in the venturi. One easy solution is take the air venturi off the skimmer and run it and put the air tube right in front of the pump's inlet and see if air milkes it out. If so, there's the problem. The octo venturi's are junk and have to be modded to be a decent skimmer.

[Snausy]

mine does the same thing...to get anything into the cup you have to have the bubble level near the top. If you set it low there is 3" of fine bubble foam but it never pushes all the way up and over into the cup. It just sits there in the tube.

I've since done the gate-valve mod which I HIGHLY recommend. I can't believe I didn't do that sooner. Trying to use the riser-tube and those stupid foam discs that just fall down underwater was completely stupid. Now I just give the gate-valve a slight tweak when I need to. Doesn't matter what is on my hands either!

I think luke may be right though, the problem we are having is linked to the venturi. I'm going to do the venturi mod that luke suggested soon as well to see if I can't fix the issue. Haven't gotten around to it yet. I still have the bubbles near the top and it slowly gets light skimmate into the cup filling it one a day.

If I set it low like people suggest it just sits there and won't put anything into the cup...EVER. Tried it and after three days of nothing but foam dirtying the neck I gave up and set it higher again.

If someone totally figures this issue out and fixes it I'd really like to know how.