Skimmer Cup cleaning?

[schigara]

How often should the cup be emptied and cleaned. I have an Octopus NW200. The cup is 8in diameter and collects about 1/2in a day and the neck gets really sludgey and slimey. I have been cleaning every other day.

Does the sludge in the neck reduce the efficiency? Should I just let it keep going until the cup gets more full?

[Sploke]

I clean mine maybe once a week, or when the air hole in the lid gets stopped up. Or, if too much stuff builds up in the neck to impede the foam from rising, but that doesn't happen too much.

[schigara]

The pic below is about 16 hours of Skimmate.

http://www.geocities.com/drcunlimited/Reef_Tank/SkimmerCup.jpg

[clown-lover]

To answer your question, yes sludge does hamper the efficiency of a skimmer. I also clean mine every other day even though the cup isn't full. I also run mine at a medium setting. Not overly dry or wet. But that setting is what is working for my tank..

hth.

[Shaummy]

I don't know that there is any "right" answer for you here. I think every other day is fine for a rule of thumb. You just dont want the gunk building up excessively so that the foam stops coming up the riser and into the cup.

I have a different skimmer, but I've gone as much as a week and not emptied it, but I'd say my average is about every couple of days when it just "looks" like it should be cleaned out, no exact science here!