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question for turboflotor 1000 users

Mikewise

GPO
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
127
Hey all, I have been doing my homework and working diligently for the last several months to ready myself for a pet octopus around January.

I bought a turboflotor used with no directions and over the last few months i have failed to really figure it out/determine whether i have it working properly.

I know it is designed to be fed directly from the overflow, but can also function drawing water from the sump. I needed to go with the second option.

i took out the standpipe, hooked it up to the OceanRunner pump it came with and turned it on... no luck: the water level only reached about about 2/3 up the chamber. I also noticed that water was coming out of the intake, which is just an open T-joint between the chamber and pump.

Then i figured i needed to have some water pressure going into the intake, as if it were being delivered by gravity from the overflow. I set up a 117 GPH micro-jet in the sump with vinyl tubing connecting it to the skimmer intake. It pulled some very dry skimmate out while the tank was new, but for weeks since stocking the tank ive been getting nothing (the foam is moderate and comes just up to the beginning of the collection cup)

I was just in the sump fiddling around with the skimmer, trying to figure out if i could make any meaningful adjustments and i pulled a cap off of the small black air intake tube. I realized that no air was entering! now, BOOM, i'm getting tons of transperant liquid skimmate. Even with the outflow cranked down, it's filling the cup it about 20 seconds.

Can anyone advise me? Is this just making up for lost time or is there something i should correct? Anyone else familiar with the airline cap I'm talking about?
 
You want the outflows as open as they can be. On mine I removed the outflow valves altogether (they pull right out). The more open the outflow, the lower the water level in the mixing chamber.
 
i ended up pulling them out too! But to no avail! the cup ws still full every 30 seconds or so.

After playing around with it and changing about 20% of my system volume in the process, I think I finally figured it out: before, no air was getting in through the airline cap. Then too much air was getting in with NO cap. In examining it, I found some salt creep blocking a rim in the cap that allows *some* air through! Now it seems i can tweak the outflows to get some reasonable skimming!

yay, problem solved! now if only i had spent the day working as I had planned...
 
At the LFS you should be able to find a small plastic valve that fits on the air hose that you can turn to adjust air flow. It should be under a dollar.
 

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