Help please

[funkymonk1984]

Hi Guys,

Had two very silly questions but ones that I could do with some advice or help with.

1. I’m using a glass surface skimmer for the first time. How and when do you clean these?

I also notice it bobs occasionally, what do I need to adjust.

2. The suction cups on the lily pipe/skimmer are very hard to get off the glass. What technique do you use to easily get them off?

 

[Superpuma1]

Mine came with a flexi spring steel cleaning brush that’s around 60-70cm in length, l of course use that to clean the skimmer.

Mine starts bobbing as you mention when it’s in need of a clean. I just take out the floating section and clean under the tap with the brush, the main glassware in the tank just gets a pass through with the brush, l clean the lower strainer with a tooth brush, bobbing stops.

 

[FrozenShivers]

Hi Guys,

Had two very silly questions but ones that I could do with some advice or help with.

1. I’m using a glass surface skimmer for the first time. How and when do you clean these?

I also notice it bobs occasionally, what do I need to adjust.

2. The suction cups on the lily pipe/skimmer are very hard to get off the glass. What technique do you use to easily get them off?

You can use a spring brush to clean, if there is very stubborn algae you can soak it in a 50/50% water & bleach solution (easy if you have a spare skimmer), make sure to sit in water & dechlorinator afterwards and rinse well to ensure there is no bleach left before it returns to the tank. As for the bobbing, that depends on the actual skimmer, do you have the instruction manual for it? Or can you show us which skimmer you have? An easy way to lift suction cups from glass is to use some sort of credit card to get under the cup.

 

[Andy Pierce]

You can use an airstone instead of a skimmer - they will both disrupt/clear biofilm from the surface. The airstone does this when the bubbles physically disrupt the biofilm and fling it everywhere, which sounds not too great on the face of it. Upsides however are increased gas exchange / oxygenation of the water column, additional movement of the water column, no moving parts to break/clean, no chance to suck up floating plants / shrimp etc.