I spent a couple hours this morning taking out the sump/fuge & overflow so that I could fir the Euro-Reef skimmer in. I haven't been overly impressed with the sump/fuge - it tended to collect a lot of debris with no room for an accessible filter sock, and I think it actually increased nitrates rather than decreased them. The fuge section had some continual cyano growth, and was hard to see into with all of the coralline on the glass. I've always been a bit worried about the overflow possibility, although I never had a problem with the Lifereef overflow restarting. It was also inconvenient for this old man to get down to pull out the Tunze skimmer cup for cleaning. If I ever go this route again it will be a better sump/fuge design, or just a sump alone.
Anyway, I finally got the Euro-Reef in, plugged the pumps in at the same time, and within seconds the cup would overflow. I raised the skimmer as high as the bracket allowed & same thing. By the time I'd stand up to check the skimmer I had to go back to the cabinet and unplug it again! This monster puts out the foam - almost too much at the start LOL!
I then decided to run the skimmer with only one pump on to try to get it to break in and get rid of any manufacturing residues that were causing the cup overflows. I ran it an hour and before starting up I had an idea - I hooked up an inline air valve with a 2 inch piece of tubing before the silencers. Didn't work - even with the valves open all the way I wasn't getting much foam. I then put everything back to normal, plugged it an again and the foam level had decreased and was now controllable. Then I noticed that the round sponge had come out and was floating at the top of the back chamber. I also noticed a lot of microbubbles in back, and in the tank. I popped in the bubble trap sponge again, and back to overflowing the cup within a few seconds! The bubble trap seems to really raise the water level in the skimmer, so that the cup overflows very quickly. I removed the sponge and back to a lot of bubbles. I managed to get rid of most of the bubbles by placing an inch thick piece of the RSM black sponge against the heater pane - to act as a bubble trap. Still a few microbubbles going into the tank, but I figure that will dissipate as the unit breaks in, and after it breaks in for a week I may try putting the bubble trap back in the skimmer bottom. Here's where I'm at right now, adjusted to have the foam at the bottom of the cup for now:
Before I put the unit in I used a magic marker to mark off 7 inches of graduations on the side of the cyclinder, so that I know where I'm at when I raise & lower the unit for final adjustments.
This monster looks very promising. I can hardly wait till it breaks in and starts putting out the gunk.
redseareef - I think you said you run without the sponge in the skimmer?