[slief]

Originally Posted by biecacka

Ok. Break in time is about a week or so? How will I know when it's broken in?
I have 10 fish going into the display next week possibly. Taking my count to 30. I can leave it where it is for now. I'm just curious about it is all.

Corey

There is no way of telling for sure that break in is complete other than knowing the minimum time is about a week at which point there will be a good slime coating inside the skimmer. At the 2 week point, it is without a doubt broken in.

Since you aren't seeing anything in the cup yet, I would close the wedge pipe slightly and see what that yields in terms of skimmate. Lowering the skimmer is at this point isn't really needed since you're not broken in yet and you're going to be adding more fish. Once we find the sweet spot for you pump after more fish are in there, then we will see if the sump needs adjustment. When you close your wedge, set it so the transition from heavily aerated water to where it turns to foam is just above the base of the neck. This transition will appear as an obvious line. Since your load is light, I would target that transition to be about 1/4" up from the white ring where the collection cup connects to the body of the skimmer. Make you wedge pipe adjustments slowly and give it a minute to settle down. A little tiny turn of the wedge will make a big difference in the level inside the skimmer.

The other alternative would be to increase your wattage in 1 watt increments as that will also raise the level in your skimmer but I did like the foam I saw. It's kind of a matter of experimenting to see what results in the best foam that is pushing the waste up the neck the best couple with a water level inside the skimmer that results in that waste going over the neck and into the cup slowly. Every tank is different which is where fine tuning for the individual tank comes into play. There really is no right or wrong but the general idea is that the lower the pump speed, the longer the contact time and the smaller the bubbles. With a lower speed comes the need for a high level in the skimmer which is where sump depth and or wedge pipe adjustments come into play. This isn't much different that any other skimmer in terms of the end result. You just have a better ability to fine tune the skimmer and foam with the RD3. Don't be afraid to play with different settings over the coming days. When I setup my Supermain 250, I played with it for nearly a month making little changes here and there to get a feel for what worked best for me in terms of pump speed and the level inside my skimmer.