aaaarrrruuuuuggggghhhhh.........(long)

[aquarist=broke]

Helped my sister move this weekend. Payment was about a head sized piece of fiji rock that she had in a bag in her closet from her tank of two years ago. It was dry as a bone, but it was HEAD sized. So I come home with this awesome rock that and dump it in the tank. I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of the sump pump sucking air. I looked at the tank and it was short about five gallons of water, and the surrounding floor of the tank was very damp and smelled of cigarette. Freaking out about now, I inspect the main tank to find no leaks, then I inspect the sump. Sure enough I find lots of water on the base of the stand. So I take a picture to show here, and then begin to empty the sump. Once empty, I pull the tank from the back of the stand and hear a thud. The skimmate jug fell over an I notice it is pretty full. Now I know it was the skimmer. I now begin to fill the sump back up and fire up the skimmer. The instant it turns on, it begins to overflow with wet foam. The only way I could keep it from doing this was to stop the air. I didn't know why this was happening, but I was sure the rock had something to do with it. I took the rock out and it smelled like an ashtray that had water in it. 8O I had to empty all the water out completely and refill it because my tank smelled like an ashtray, and I know that my fish are non-smokers. :x

Lesson One: NEVER accept dry fiji rock from your heavy smoking sister!

I know my tank could've used a water change, but that was ridiculous. The good thing is that when I was emptying out the overflow box I found a bolt. Where did that come from? :x

 

[dattack]

Ouch. I had to laugh at this post. Didn't you smell the dead rock before you put it in your tank? I hope your tank is O.K. We definitely know that cigarettes don't contain any carcinogens right.
:lol:

 

[Anonymous]

wow.

Good thing you found that bolt though.

 

[danmhippo]

Hmmm, So your skimmer is a non-smoker, eh?

 

[tanzy]

I get hyperfoaming of skimmer when I drop in a poly pad without washing it. My skimmer collection bucket filled up in one minute! After that I switched to an auto cut-off collection bucket that restricts airflow once it's full. It helps.

 

[IronChef]

Maybe you could get a couple of Pipefish :lol:

 

[tazdevil]

Sounds like some sort of material (other than the cigarette smoke) that died on the rock remained there. Hence, skimmer went nuts once this was exposed to the tank, as this rock started to cure, result-skimmer overflowed its resevoir (my ev120 would've done this SEVERAL times if it wasn't for the shutoff feature!).

 

[Hal1]

Tazdevil:

How did you rig your EV for auto shutoff?

 

[tazdevil]

When you buy it with a waste container (I would recommend this, especially when the skimmer's breaking in). The supplemental waste container has a simple device to shut down the reaction, to the point the skimmer just bubbles/froths at the bottom, not producing skimmate. What happens-the collection container has a ping-pong ball in a clear plastic tube just below the vent stack. When the skim level fills the container, the ball rises until it reaches the top, shutting off the vent. Then, the reaction is almost completely shut down, still may produce a very dry skim. Empty the waste container, and once in a while clean the ball so it won't jam in the tube, and reaction begins again. My skimmer is in-sump, while the waste container is about 2 feet away, outside the sump. The only real suggestion I have with this is to be sure and use a very flexible tubing between the skimmer and waste container, to allow for any twisting/bending that may be necessary. Also, be sure the tubing never goes up, only down or turns corners, otherwise tubing will back up, and shut down the reaction as well. For ease, I did place the skimmer on a platform in the sump, so the bends the tubing made were not extreme, and it had a slight downhill direction to it towards the waste container.
HTH, FWIW.