Back up and rolling w/MR1 & sump/ref

[Tie]

2 Weeks after flooding my living room I'm back up and rolling. But NOT before I flooded it one more time for good measure! More on that in a sec. LOL

I took the down time as a good opportunity to build and stuff in a 29Gal sump/ref that I normally would not have been able to get in my stand with the tank in place. (hope I never need to remove it).

I also got an MR1 skimmer. <--------- this caused my SECOND FLOOD In 2 weeks. It's probably my fault but the instructions where pretty vague (I'm still not sure my water level and air are right). I used an in sump setup but I guess my water level was too high in the sump and when I woke up the next morning it had somehow blown 4" of water out of my sump through the waist collection barb. Since my waist collection bottle was only 1 quart it made a huge mess. Apparently the MR1 won't tolerate being submerged any deeper than 1 to 2 inches above the skimmer box and look out if it is. Anyway it dumped probably 7gal and I had to tear my entire setup down AGAIN, rip the carpet up AGAIN, dry it all out AGAIN, have the carpet re-stretched AGAIN, carpet shampooed AGAIN, modify my sump so the water level was a few inches lower and start all over AGAIN. On the plus side I'm really getting good at arranging 120lbs of LR! LOL each time I managed to make it look and fit better than before.

I'm kinda surprised my water condition seems to be doing well. It's a little murky but I'm sure it will clear up over the next couple days.

I've probably got about 30Gal of new water due to all that was flooded out over the past 2 weeks. I tested a few hours after I got it all setup and levels seem great considering.

PH 8.2
Amonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10

I'll let it all settle for a few days then I'll test calcium and start doing a little dosing.

Some questions:

1) Do you think my tank will go through another cycle from all the moving in and out from the display tank to tubs or do you think I'm still moving right along? I mentioned when I first posted a couple weeks ago about my flood that a lot of the LR smelled like rotting eggs. It smells MUCH better now. Most of it fresh like the Ocean. Still a couple of smaller/med sized pieces that have a little smell.

2) It's been about 18 hours and my MR1 is still not producing any foam. I'm kinda surprised because I know there is lots of work for it to do. That LR was sitting in three 19gal plastic containers and the rest of the water was in a 30gal rubber trash can. The water was kinda scummy and in the trash can where there was no LR (just lots of circulation) it was a little slimy. By slimy I mean that it left a slimy coat on some 1" tubing that I inadvertently left sitting in there. I'm heading home in a few I'll post a pic of the MR1 in the sump. It's just stirring around lots of bubbles in the first riser.

[Leddy]

Aw man Tie! Sorry to hear it happened again.


Leddy

[Reefland]

Tie,

Check out the instructions for your MR-1 again to make sure you have adjusted everything correctly for the initial set-up. I would say that you did not have the gate valve all the way opened for the first night and that caused your problem becuase I can have my MR-1 submersed 1-3" above the box with no problems.

Intially for the first 24 hours, I left the gate valve all the way open and the air valve opened totally. After 24 hours, I adjusted the gate valve so I could see foam all the way up the riser tube except for the 1st 1" or so at the bottom and then I adjusted the air valve 24 hours after that. After about 1 week of break in, the skimmer was producing skimmate like mad!

Scott Z.

[Tie]

Thanks Led, I'm just glad to take my lumps now before I have tons of livestock. And like I said, it gave me a chance to try a few different things with my LR and I now have a 29gal sump. I'm going to just dwell on the positive otherwize I get pissed at myself.






Scott.
Take a look at my MR1


I left the needle all the way open for the first 20 hours or so and my gate is full on open, always has been. I'm currently a couple of turns to the close side on my needle. Does that all look right? No action in the upper riser at all. Also, look at the injector. It has water in the outer chamber about 1" below the needle. I'm a little afraid to close my gate. What do you think?

You can see where I cut the baffles down. my level was almost to the second riser on the outside and thus the flood.

[Tie]

HELP! It did it AGAIN!!!! I'm SO glad I made an extra long drain hose and put it going to a 30 gal tub just to be sure! I woke up this morning and it had dumped a good 3 gal into through the waist toob!

I have no idea why its doing that?! It's ran fine for days. I've not really made any changes to it except maybee to close the neadle a few turns.

[SteveP]

HELP! It did it AGAIN!!!! I'm SO glad I made an extra long drain hose and put it going to a 30 gal tub just to be sure! I woke up this morning and it had dumped a good 3 gal into through the waist toob!

I have no idea why its doing that?! It's ran fine for days. I've not really made any changes to it except maybee to close the neadle a few turns.

This is one of the reasons I don't like skimmers that output waste to a collector outside the tank. I'd rather the collection cup fill up and stop skimming than dump 5 gallons on the floor.

No familiar with these skimmers tho - can the makers offer any suggestions ?

Steve

[Reefland]

How do you have the drain tube set-up? The drain tube should have a bit of air blowing through it and if it gets stopped, it could cause this problem. I also dropped Andy a PM so he can chime in with some words of wisdom.

[Tie]

There is a nice flow of air exiting from the drain. The first time I flooded from the MR1 I had a short 12" to 16" of hose draining right to an open quart cool aid type pitcher. I was a little scared to flood again so just to be safe this second time after I modified my sump I went ahead and attached a long tube and draped it into a large plastic bin. The air flow is good through that tube and as you can see from this photo it dumped a lot of water out that waist tube.



I took some more pics of the MR with everything powered down just so you can see how it's all hooked up.





Gate: fully open
Needle Valve: 3 full turns from fully open
Water level outside the skimmer: with all pumps on and water flowing is about 2" to 2.5" above the black skimmer box.

Right after I took those pics I dumped the discarded water back in the sump and fired it all up again. It all looks fine. I have no clue how it magically starts pumping gallons our of the waist in the middle of the night when no one is around to see.

Here is a link to a Mpg4 vid I took of the skimmer in action. This is set just as described above but I opened the needle all the way. Why I don't know. Just trying to see if it looks any diff. The bubbles are not quite as fine as they where last night.
http://www.xeyeweb.com/tyrin/mr1.asf

[Reefland]

Thge first thing I notice is that the drain line from the collection cup is just laying loose in the tub and if for any reason the air can't escape through that, I think it will cause the skimmer to overflow as you have seen. Turn on the skimmer and put your thumb over the end of the drain hose to see what happens.

My second thought is that the gate valve is point towards the glass in your sump and if the outflow becomes restricted, it would cause it to do this as well; just like closing the gate valve too much.

[Tie]

OK.. I Finlay saw it. I don't know why it happens at night but what it does is start to really bubble all the way up both risers and it slowly sloshes water out. I would say it takes a good 4 hours to dump out 5 gal.

I don't think its the drain hose clogging up but I'll cut it back and make it a more straight shot. When I plug the drain it stops the water and bubbles stop coming up the riser and fills the skimmer full of air and then starts to float up a bit.

As for the gate facing the glass... it's a good 2" from it. What else could I do? I thought about putting an elbow and direct the gate flow up or something? Not sure though. I kinda thought the elbow would create more back pressure than the the way it is now but I'm a newb at this so I could totally be wrong.

Could it be too much air getting injected? Creating to big and to many bubbles causing all the bubbling up and sloshing out? I'll try just cracking the injector to let a little air in for the rest of the nights.

Scott, how deap is your MR1 submerged in your sump and what is your water level inside the first riser when you first turn your skimmer on?

[Tie]

Andy helped me figure out my MR1 problem. Looks like the injector had a little problem and was letting too much air back up the injector. A new piece is on the way and for the time being a little plumbers tape did the trick.

2 days of skimming and my Trates have dropped from over 10 to well under 10! This skimmer ROCKS! Thanks for the good advice! It was a little more than I wanted to spend on a skimmer but well worth it! It pulls mad gunk out like crazy!

[Poseidon]

Tie... So sorry to hear about all your mess. I'm glad the skimmer is up and rolling well now. I agree with Scott though, just to be safe I would try and get the ouput pointed away, or at least diagnal to the glass. That way the return water does not hit an obstruction of any kind.