Bubble King 200 Internal installation and settings

[Bojan]

I have few questions about Bubble King 200 Internal installation and settings. Please help me.

What are minimum sump dimensions ?
What is optimal water level in sump ?
What is optimal water level in skimmer ?
How it is possible to regulate amount of air ?
Do you have any picture of Bubble King 200 Internal complety installed and in operation ?

[Orion76]

I think the water level minimum is 15cm and maximum is 30cm.

For your other questions, you should probably assemble and start running this skimmer and play with it for a while and then come here to ask for assistance in fine tuning and maximizing performance. This is a very easy skimmer to assemble and get running.

[Bojan]

I believe that is very simple, but I always like to read some instructions before I started to play. Life is too short to learn everything from experience.

[Orion76]

Ok here's a tip: I filled up the bathtub and put the Bubble King in before I designed my sump. It will give you the best idea of how it works and how much space it needs.

For fun poor some skimmate from another skimmer into the bathtub

[Bojan]

Thats is good idea. I will buy small glass or plastic aquarium for testing, before I will order sump. Such aquarium is not very expensive.

[Bojan]

I started with Bubble King testing today.

First I put skimmer in plastic container with dimensions 52cm x 40 cm and 24 cm high. I filled container with aquarium water to 20 cm and plug in pump to start skimmer.

I push the telescope pipe to the lowest position. The rotating pipe for fine water level adjustment was been 100% opened.

After starting skimmer , I saw many fine bubbles in skimmer , but no foam. After 30 minutes skimmer still did not produce any foam.

So I poured some skimmate from another skimmer into the container. BK started to produce foam very quickly and after 10 minutes BK collected all skimate. This mean that BK works, but I do not understand why BK did not produce any foam from aquarium water.

Do you have explanation ?

Do you have any idea for next test ?

Thanks in advance for any advice or tip.

[GTR]

It may take some time for the internal surfaces to get cleaned out. Coatings on the materails may cause the foam to break down.

My 300 took about a week to break in but it was producing a wet skimmate the first day. Not just clear water but tea colored at first.

SteveU

[GTR]

I find that I needed to raise the sliding pipes about 1.5 - 2 fingers. The exit pipes are turned but I don't think far enough to restrict the exiting water. The first day I ran it with the pipes all the way down. After a week I ended up with them slightly raised as noted above.

SteveU

[Orion76]

Bojan, like Steve said it takes about a week to break the skimmer in.

Secondly it will require some fine tuning to get it to perform right, but it makes no sense to work on fine tuning your skimmer before it's broken in and running in your system. Just let it run in the container until you are ready to put it into your system. It will be broken in by then and you'll be able to start on fine tuning right away.

For now you have a good visual model for you to see exactly how much space the skimmer needs in your sump.

[Bojan]

Thanks

[SeanCallan]

Actually, theres a trick to breaking skimmers in. If you take salmon out of the can and blend it up. Put the skimmer in it's on bucket or tank, if you make it skim the mix it'll coat the inside the skimmer and really break it in quickly.

[Orion76]

Actually by breaking a skimmer in you are trying to achieve the opposite... or was that a joke?

[Bojan]

Do you have any valve for regulating air intake on your Bubble King internal skimmers ?

[Orion76]

Do you have any valve for regulating air intake on your Bubble King internal skimmers ?

Yes there is a plastic screw for that below the carbon air filter.

[GTR]

My 300 internal has no air intake adjustment screw.

SteveU