Bubble King & Red Dragon Maintenance

[GTR]

What should the maintenance be for the Bubble King and Red Dragon pump for my BK 300 Internal model. Cleaning the cup I got down to a science.

How often should I clean the air intake, pump intake & impeller and the main skimmer body?
My ASM G3 seemed to need the venturi cleaned at least weekly. The BK seems to be getting better due to being broken in or my adjustments.

SteveU

[Aged Salt]

Hi Steve, that puppy is nice. A couple of tricks that help my skimmer's efficiently:
1) aspirate the air tubing once a wk. with warm RODI water
2) turn off the pinwheel pump for 5-10min daily to dislodge build-up on the pinwheels.
3) clean the main skimmer riser cylinder every 2wks Bob

[GTR]

Thanks Bob...
This is an internal and if I shut off the pump there is no other circulation in the skimmer. Will this still do anything? If so I'll just use one of those multi-pin timers and push all but one in.

SteveU

[OUinLA]

Once a year, clean the RD insides. If you haven't done it already, they are easy to take apart. You need a 5mm hex wrench. The needlewheel just pulls out but you have to use a little force because the magnets are pretty strong.

[Aged Salt]

Steve, in your case, try turning the skimmer off for 5 sec. then fire the pinwheels back up against the water momentum to loosen up debris from the wheels. If it does help, your skimmer should run wet for several min. then settle down. Bob

[GTR]

Bob... thanks again I'll try that.

I just filled my 16oz cup I used to run water through the ASM venturi and had the BK suck it up. I blinked and it was empty. So I filled a one gallon pitcher with RO... The BK sucked it up in 29 seconds.

SteveU