The smell from my skimmer is stinking up my house. I have been looking around on the internet and it said to put a carbon filter on top of the skimmer cup. I also found it to say put pickling lime in the collection cup. I just wanted to see if you any of you guys have any suggestions, tips or something you do to keep it from stinking up your house.
you could put a carbon filter but I would not use anything that would be detrimental to your tank as your skimmer can overflow at anytime, best solution would to be skim a little wetter and clean it everyday.
What Frank said.
Wetter skim will hold the stink down a bit on it’s own, dumping and cleaning the cup every day or so will help as well.
I like the carbon idea - I can think of 2 ways to do it - 1st would be to put a small piece of carbon filter pad on top of the skim cup. The 2nd would be to cut a carbon donut from the filter pad, and place it in the bottom of the cup.
I would NOT reccomend pickling lime. As it will aide in the reduction of “Funky smell” if the cup overflows you’re dumping extremely high PH water right back in to your tank, which could have horrific consequences to your livestock.
That makes sense about the pickling lime. I was going to definitely try placing a carbon filter on top of cup. Figured wouldnt hurt anything doing that. I also found this on the internet. I am considering giving it a shot. What do you guys think ?
Read the article, looks like a good idea. The filter pad itself can be carbon infused, just a thought. I saw someone who had their skimmer drawing in outside air and venting it outside too. I dont know if that is an option for you. Co2 build up inside an enclosed room can be partially remedied as well with this.
Not sure if venting outside is an option or not. I will look into it. I am not sure how to skim wetter. If you could elaborate on that I would appreciate it. TIA
What skimmer do you have ?
just wondering :
:
how much do you feed? what are your nitrate levels?
I don’t think the smell is too noticeable for most of us in the hobby ???
a wetter skim is exactly that… you just need to adjust the water column height in your skimmer… depending on the model, i’d go up about an inch for starters. a translucent skimate would be less concentrated and less stanky…
I put nori in everyday. Just a small piece measures about 2 in by 4 in. I give them a small amount of frozen marine cuisine once every other day. Nitrates are 10ppm ammonia and nitrites are 0. I have an octopus skimmer.
I have an octopus skimmer.
Which one if we know the model we can give better advice and direction.
I am not sure of the model. I bought it used. Is the model info on the skimmer itself?
Most do, something Like SRO 1000 Int or SRO 2000 XP or similar
If it has a gate valve to skim wetter you would turn the knob clockwise a little.
If it has an wedge cut stand pipe you would need to turn it either way as the wedge could be on either side of the opening. but you shoulld be able to see the bubble level rise or lower, the higher the bubble level the wetter it will skim, to give you an Idea, I have SRO 1000int and fill my cup about every other day with tea colored skimate.
i will have to look at it to see what the model is. I only get about 2 inches in it every couple of days then I have to empty it because the smell is so bad. It is a dark green color.
the only thing it says on the skimmer is reef octopus. I dont see any other info.
should be white silkscreen on the side.
does it have a gate valve ?
Figured it out!!! There is a pipe that twists to adjust it. Thanks for your help!
Just wanted to give everyone an update! Once I adjusted the skimmer so that it skimmed wetter the smell is no longer an issue!!! PoM