Aquamaxx HOB-1 Microbubbles

[tamz273]

Hey all,

Been a while since I have been here.. I took my tank apart a few years ago, and have just setup a new 30gal. I bought the Aquamaxx HOB-1 for a skimmer, but have been having microbubbles flood back into the tank ever since I bought it.

It has been running for over a month and a half now. The microbubbles have decreased, but are still there. It seems that they are making their way back from the "pump/collection cup" chamber, into the "overflow" chamber. I have read in multiple other threads that people have had issues with this skimmer, but most thread mention that once the skimmer breaks in, all the bubbles are gone.

I just tried adding a pretty corse sponge to the return chamber, which resulted in the skimmer going nuts (probably because of me not rinsing the sponge first).

Any suggestions on how to get rid of these bubbles? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[tamz273]

Took some images of the amount of microbubbles being purged back in.. More progress:

I called Marine Depot today and explained my scenario. The rep on the phone recommended a water change and to run some carbon. I wasn't too keen on running carbon on the tank, it barely had anything in it. Off to the LFS I went, picked up 15gal of SW.

At the store, I spoke to the reefer and he advised that the excessive bubbles may be due to the lack of protein to be skimmed. I havent really read anything about that, but I realized that all the previous posts I had read were by people who have had a tank up and running for a while. I decided to stock up on more fish in hope to increase bioload drastically.

I added 2 clowns and a six-line wrasse, and did a 15gal water change (50%). I am now going to let the tank run for a while without the skimmer running, and then will try starting it up again. I noticed that my snails were getting rather irritated with the bubbles, and were falling off the glass.

Hopefully the excessive livestock addition wont cause too much ammonia for my tank to handle.. Any thoughts? Agree/disagree with bubbles being caused by lack of livestock?

Total live stock:
About 1.5 dozens CUC (Snails/Hermits)
Cleaner Shrimp
Diamond Goby (that has been hiding for a day)
Six Line (Also hiding, but just added it to the tank so not surprised)
2 Clowns (no signs of stress)

 

[TL1000RSquid]

I don't know anything about that skimmer. You mentioned you tried some foam I'd play around more with that I know a few people solved micro bubble problems with foam or polyfil on the outputs of other skimmers.

 

[tamz273]

Thanks for the advice TL.. Ive tried lots of foam, my last resort was to put a foam cylinder on the return of the skimmer.. Bubbles have been reduced, but still not gone. Im afraid of adding any more live stock until my bubbles issue is resolved...