HELP?: Skimmer Overflowing from Chemiclean Treatment
 

How long will it take for the skimmer to return to normal after a treatment of Chemiclean???

I did a 20% water change as instructed, no change. What has been your experience, and advice/tips??

Thanks.

I just went through this with Red Slime Remover. I left my skimmer off for five days as instructed, did a 25% water cahnge, and my skimmer still went nuts when I turned it back on. My collection cup would fill completely with clear water within about 15 seconds.

Here is what I did, and it worked like a champ. All my critters and corals seem to look a little better afterwards as well. If you have a drain hole in your skimmer cup, you can hook a hose to it and let it drain into a water change bucket as the skimmer is running wide open. (You can always add a drain hole in your cup as well, but you will need to plug it up afterwards if you don't want to run an external collection container.) Anyway, I had a water change bucket filled with fresh mixed salt water standing by. As the skimmer pulled water out, I pumped in clean water. It's like doing a water change using your skimmer as the out-pump. I have a 150g display tank with a 55g sump. It took about 35 gallons of fresh mixed salt water before my skimmer finally settled down, and quit overflowing. It's been about a week, and everything looks great in my tank.

The only other option is to just let the skimmer run, and keep emptying the cup as it fills. Just be careful if you have an auto top-off as your salinity may drop with all the skimming. It will take a while, but eventually your skimmer will settle down and act right.

Best of luck to you.

just turn your skimmer all the way down and after a day it will settle down

Thanks, I appreciate the info. My skimmer (Warner Marine K2 cone) cup has a drain, so I might drain/refill as mentioned, or maybe just let it run and drain back into the sump, as the water is mostly clean, I put some Purigen in the filter sock, so that will help filtration too...

Do many multiple WCs and run skimmer first couple of days w/ out cup--increases O2.
Then after 3-4 days run skimmer as dry as possible.
Last time I believe I used "red slime remover" and it seemed to do better. I've used Chemi-Clean a couple of times, and my skimmer was going very, very nuts.
Just keep the cup off---skimmer on, until you can get a handle.

+1 - This is exactly what I did, and it calmed down after about a week.

I just let mine fill up, and after emptying it three times it was back to normal.

Skimmer still goin nuts
 

Hmmm...did one 20%, and 2 small changes since Sat. eve., skimmer turned all the way down, and still goin nuts... I guess by Sat. it should stop?? If not, what, more water changes...run carbon, anything else?

Everything else !!
Yes, multipe WCs will bring it back to normal. It will not hurt the tank to run the skimmer w/ out the cup on it. Before you go to bed, take the cup off. It will go back to normal, trust me--mine took ~10 days. That's why I used a diferent brand the past 2x. Skimmer did not go nuts after 2 days; however, it did go nuts for the first 2 days, and no WCs needed. I can check and see what brand I used, it did a good job.

Thanks for the info, yeah, I'd like to know the brand you used...don't think I'll use the ChemiClean again, unless it's a last resort...

I used a fresh bag of carbon in my hob for 48 hours and my skimmer stopped going crazy.

I just used chemiclean 2 WC ago and i am now having this issue. It literally fills the skimmer cup with water within minutes.

When I use chemiclean, I turn off carbon reactor but not GFO reactor. I leave the skimmer running but without the cup (mine's in the sump so it just overflows back into the sump). That helps aeration in the tank but I also put an air-pumping powerhead in the tank.

After the treatment I change 30% of the water and turn the carbon reactor back on. I leave the skimmer cup off for a couple of days and test to see if it is skimming foam or pumping water. It gets okay quickly, but I fully expect it to "go crazy" for a little while.