Micro air bubbles

RedTornado

Reefing newb
So my tank has been up and running now for 3 days. May water is nice and clean the only thing is I am have a micro air bubble problem. I have looked over everything and I have narrowed it down to the return pump or the piping to the tank. Nothing is leaking so i don't think air is getting into the lines. I am running a Mag Drive 12. Is the pump just breaking in? Is there something I should do to help solve this problem? Any ideas would be great. Thanks
 
How is your sump setup? Are there any baffles to prevent air bubbles formed from water draining into it from making their way across the sump and being sucked back up by your Mag Drive?
 
Sorry it took so long to get back to you. Over the last couple days the return pump has stopped producing air bubbles but the skimmer is a different story. I am running a AquaC EV 180 i choose it because no matter how many reviews i read i never read a bad one. As soon as i turn it on my display tank gets loaded with bubbles. It has been running just about non stop since i started up the tank to get it broken in.

My sump is set up with the drain line running into the water about 3 inches. There is a baffle between the drain line and the skimmer. There will be LR under the return line. The water flows out the bottom through a 1.25 inch gap to the skimmer. The skimmer is powered by a mag 7 (soon may be a mag 9 do to reports of better performance). It then goes to a Another set of baffles (bubble trap) they are 1.25 inches apart. The bubble trap stands 8.75 inches tall. it then flows down and under to the return pump the mag 12. I do keep the water line at 10 inches deep. Keep in mind this all sits in a 20 gallon tall tank. i am thinking the mag 12 is just to powerful and when i change to the mag 9 i was thinking about making the mag 7 my return pump. Then getting a hold of some power heads to give me the flow i need.

If you would like to see a picture of it let me know.
I am starting to think there is just so much flow through the sump that the bubbles cant get out of the water fast enough.
 
I am using tap water (well water not city at least). When i first filled the tank I filtered it for 3 days with activated carbon before I added the salt to the water. When I start doing my 10% water changes I am planning on using RO. I do have a tap water conditioner in the tank and a bacteria supplement that my LFS said to use. Slime coat I do not believe is either one of those. Any ideas for any other additives I should be putting in the tank? Thanks
 
The tap water condition and bacteria supplement is probably what's causing the skimmer to go haywire and produce bubbles. Most skimmers are not compatible with those additives. I suspect that if you switch over to RODI water and do a whole lot of water changes to dilute out the tap water conditioner and bacteria supplement (which you don't need), then the skimmer will straighten out.
 
then that would explain why as soon as the skimmer broke in it pushed 10 gallons worth of crud out of my tank. it has now slowed down and isn't pushing anything out of the water at the moment. I think this will be my weekend project to do a big water change over to Rodi water and to see how it goes.
 
Yes, they can be finicky and difficult to work with :(

The water conditioner will get broken down and get out of the system eventually, so if you start using RODI water, it should get better.
 
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