[slief]

Originally Posted by jcs11236

Thanks for the informative reply.
You are correct, skimmer runs nicely for a few days and then goes out of wack. Not very consistent. And now I am aware it has to do with the low docs.
im goin to do like you stated and see how deep it needs to be in order to run wedge open. I feel like the inconsistency has to do with the wedge being so closed if that makes sense

The wedge closed that much will only impact the skimmer by causing siphoning from the drain line. It shouldn't have any real impact on consistency. The restriction will cause the level inside the skimmer to rise up until there is enough head pressure to cause the water to siphon from the drain side. This becomes pretty obvious because you will see an up and down motion inside the skimmer every several seconds or less at the bubble line. We refer to that as surging and like I said, it's usually pretty obvious.

In your case, I suspect what you are seeing is the result of the skimmer driving the dissolved organics out of the system. Once that happens, the skimmer can no longer make a good foam head so it will idle along for several days (not producing any skimmate) until the DOC's build back up. Once they build up enough, the skimmer will start producing a good foam head again and generate skimmate for a couple days or more until it reduces the DOC's. Then the cycle repeats. If you have the skimmer set too wet, it will want to inadvertently overflow. There is however a fine line where you should be able to adjust it wet enough that it will produce wet skimmate reasonably consistently. You just have to adjust the internal water level high enough in the skimmer to get it to produce consistently but low enough that it doesn't overflow if you look at it wrong. This requires very subtle fine adjustments of the wedge pipe and getting the sump level in the right ball park first will go a long way in terms of being able to take advantage of the fine adjustments the wedge pipe offers.

It's also very critical that you run an ATO to maintain a consistent sump level otherwise your skimmer will never be consistent. It will overflow if you add too much water and not produce with the slightest bit of evaporation. Same goes with water changes. Add too much new water and your skimmer may overflow. Too little water and your skimmers internal level will drop.