salt deposits in skimmer ideas?

[Jdubbs]

I bought a MSO external octopuss skimmer back in october. Salt keeps creeping in the air tube and I have to run hot RO water in it daily to make it work correctly.

Anybody have any ideas? its a 1/8 inch tube and I tried modding the intake hole to make it wider.. its annoying as all hell

 

[jackson6745]

I have the same problem with a deltec mce skimmer:irked:

 

[Jdubbs]

it drives me nuts.. I'm thinking about getting rid of it soon if I can't fix it somehow

 

[Killerdrgn]

I changed the standard airline tubing to the ro water tubing. Same size, and I do not have this problem. makes it a little louder though.

 

[pecan2phat]

Try shutting down your skimmer pumps when you feed for about 15-30 minutes daily. This might help the salt creep buildup.

 

[palyman]

Try increasing the lenth of the tubing

 

[jackson6745]

Jdubbs, thanks to your thread I extended the length of the air intake with some RO tubing. I have my tank near a window so I put the house out of the window and now I don't hear any sucking noise.

 

[BZOFIQ]

it actually isn't just salt creep alone (which would be easy to dissolve with freshwater), there is also some calcium deposit.

 

[Jdubbs]

I changed the standard airline tubing to the ro water tubing. Same size, and I do not have this problem. makes it a little louder though.

So does this prevent salt creep and keeps the air flowing? can I get the tubing from home depot?

 

[Jdubbs]

Try increasing the lenth of the tubing

How does this prevent the salt build up?

 

[Killerdrgn]

So does this prevent salt creep and keeps the air flowing? can I get the tubing from home depot?

All I can say is that i've never had a salt creep problem in the line.though I do reprime the overflow tube whenever i change the water so that may be part of the solution.

 

[Jdubbs]

Jdubbs, thanks to your thread I extended the length of the air intake with some RO tubing. I have my tank near a window so I put the house out of the window and now I don't hear any sucking noise.

I'm glad my problems could end up helping others!

Jackson - did the ro tubing help prevent the salt build up? What happens is after about 6 hours the air bubbles do not come out as strong. when I run hot ro water threw the tubing it dissolves the salt and it works noticably better. then it happens again within 6 hours. If I could fix this issue it would be a great skimmer.

 

[BZOFIQ]

^^^ 6 hours ??? salt creep build up and noticeable difference in 6 hours??? that's pretty weird if you ask me. I have to run water through it maybe once every 3-4 weeks (i use hot tap water) and every 6 months or so clean out the nozzle on the venturi at the pump, but 6 hours? hmmm