Skimmer Help

[soramsu]

I'm finally to the point of getting water in my tank and I turned on the skimmer tonight. It's a reef octopus xp-2000. It's actually been sitting around for the past 5 months while I worked on other things. This is the first time I've even tried it. It seemed to work fine for a bit, then after about 4-5 mins it started making a weird noise, like the pump was getting stopped up. Looking at the bubbles coming from the pump, they do stop sporadically. I'm thinking this isn't supposed to happen (never used a skimmer before, so I don't know haha).

Any ideas?

[wes1333]

Check and make sure theres nothing blocking the pump or anything inside it.

[disc1]

What kind of skimmer? How deep in the water? I have had this problem on needle-wheel pumps when they are too deep under the water.

[soramsu]

nothing is blocking it and there doesn't appear to be anything inside of it. I guess I can take it apart and look. Do these things ever need like oil or anything?

The skimmer is a reef octopus xp 2000. It has a bubble blaster pump. I think this is a needle wheel (looks like a wheel with needles sticking out haha). It's prob ~3" below the water. I have the water line in the middle of the grey pipe sticking out with the red adjustment knob on it like the instructions say..not sure what that pipe is called haha. So, I don't see how I could get it too far under the water...

[soramsu]

took apart what I could and didn't see anything that shouldn't be in there. I've let it keep running and it seems to be getting a little better. Maybe it just needs time to warm up?

[JoeRonda]

Could just be a bad vibration noise, skimmer pumps are good for that. I like to sit my pump on a scrubber pad or piece of bio-mesh or something to absorb the vibration and hum. Good Luck, I hate noises that I can't find the source of. :mad: