Why is it that my skimmer stops skimming sometimes?

[l3xxx]

Why is it that sometimes my skimmer just stops skimming. It starts skimming great pushing out alot of foam, and then after a few hours or less it just starts making bubbles and thats it. I have an Octopus NW-110 Needle-Wheel Protein Skimmer for a 20 gallon tank. I hope its not a piece of junk.

 

[Anonymous]

Why is it that sometimes my skimmer just stops skimming. It starts skimming great pushing out alot of foam, and then after a few hours or less it just starts making bubbles and thats it. I have an Octopus NW-110 Needle-Wheel Protein Skimmer for a 20 gallon tank. I hope its not a piece of junk.

If you stick your hands in the water or feed your fish the oil from it will kill the foam production. It should start foaming again within a couple hours at most.

 

[Len]

Skimmers do this for a number of reasons related to suffocants in the water. If you stick your hand in the tank, or if you feed the tank, the skimmer's foam will usually collaspe. As Matt says, it's related to oils; Small amounts of oil can change the performance of the foam drastically for a few hours.

Another reason is skimmers performance seem to have a "minimum threshold" for nutrients where it will start producing high-volume foam. Below this threshold, the foam tends to collapse on itself. This is why you often see skimmer's foam production come and go in cycles.