Yet another skimmer question

[itsacrispy]

Yep, another skimmer-related question from Mike.

I changed out my filter sock last night, the most recent one being about 8 days old in the sump and very dirty. Prior to the sock change, my skimmer was doing a good job producing a dark green skimmate. But immediately after the sock change, I noticed that the bubbles in the skimmer are much, much finer that before and no foam is being produced. Even after lowering the filter cup, the skimmer I'm not getting any foam, just water.

My question is, was the skimmer pulling gunk out because of the "dirtiness" of the previous sock?

 

[tuberider]

It could be from your hands being in the tank especially if you have anything oily on them.

 

[itsacrispy]

Thanks tube. I wear arm-length gloves though, so I don't think it could have been oil from my hands. I'm trying to think if there was anything else oily that I put into the tank.

One other thing to note is that after 9 hours, the skimmer is still not producing any foam.

 

[Elite]

I think it's the filter sock. Everytime I replaced the filter sock, my ASM skimmer stopped working for a like whole day. Sometimes, it didn't skimmer anything. Other times it went nuts : .. New filter sock is worse. Hopefully you rinsed the new sock really good before you put it in.

 

[itsacrispy]

Doh, no I didn't. I usually do, but this time I was in a hurry and ended up just putting it in w/o rinsing.

 

[Elite]

I guess it's too late to rinse it now ;D.. Just wait for a day or two to see if it start to skim again.

 

[itsacrispy]

Will do. On another note, I noticed a major downside to filter socks last night. When I was cleaning out the old sock, I found about 20 'pods in it; some of them were almost a half inch in size! I know it sounds lame, but I hate the idea of losing these guys so i'll probably end up rinsing the socks out over a bucket and scooping up the pods to throw back into the tank.

 

[zambavi]

Ya... I find pods and tiny brittles in mine every once in a while. I try to pick them out of the sock and toss them back into the fuge. Not 100% though.

 

[itsacrispy]

so aside from keeping the microbubbles out of the system, what else do filter socks do that's beneficial? I'm doing a bit more research, and so far i'm seeing a lot of cons that may outweigh the one pro that I see, i.e. preventing beneficial critters from reaching fuge, preventing uneaten food from reaching the fuge and thereby becoming a nitrate factory, etc.

 

[zambavi]

The main thing it does IMO is trap ditritus. I do a T off of my return that feeds my fuge so the sock does not deny my fuge of uneated food, etc.

 

[itsacrispy]

Aaaah, that's right, forgot about that.

 

[seminolecpa]

Yep. I have my socks attached to the main tank drain. The fuge drain goes directly in to the sump.