The Puffer Forum

I'm sure just reading the title of this post got more than a few laughs, but check it out: I've got a Red Sea Prizm HOB skimmer on my 40 gallon tank I have Camille in. Now, I know that nobody has anything good to say about these things, but this one has worked fine for years without any problems until recently. For some reason, it will suddenly fill its collection cup up and start overflowing after running normally for hours, and I'm really, really sick of this thing dumping saltwater on the cherry hardwood floor in this room. It woke me up at 2 in the morning today overflowing, and overflowed again just a while ago, but I caught it before it could really dump a lot of water. I wanted to see if anyone here knew what might cause a skimmer to do this, change in water chemistry, skimmer really dirty, air pump going bad, or if it's just time to use the Prizm as a shotgun target and try something else (I don't have the room to do a normal skimmer, so it's gonna have to be an HOB type.)

Any ideas?

Is it really dirty?

There's hardly any dirt in it at all, but it hasn't had a good cleaning in a while. Still not sure that would cause it to flood the collector cup like that, though.

Can you raise the cup? I had an HOB years ago and I had to raise the cup or it would overflow daily.

Get rid of that piece of crap & get a real skimmer!

I got one for free (all their worth) & use it in emergencies, when I have a new tank & haven't bought a skimmer for it yet. Certainly won't handle a 40g.

Try dialing the nob that controls the flow into the skimmer. I also had to hold my finger over the air intake, to start fine bubbles.

Fair enough, lol... any recommendations for a replacement?

Pufferpunk wrote:Get rid of that piece of crap & get a real skimmer!

I got one for free (all their worth) & use it in emergencies, when I have a new tank & haven't bought a skimmer for it yet. Certainly won't handle a 40g.

Try dialing the nob that controls the flow into the skimmer. I also had to hold my finger over the air intake, to start fine bubbles.

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