Mishap Monday: That Time My Hang On Back Protein Skimmer Overflowed

Welcome to Simple Reefs. This is a brand new website dedicated to taking the complexity out of Marine Aquarium Ownership. Our goal is to show you how you can own your very own slice of the ocean without spending a fortune. As well as giving you tons of easy to digest information on all things marine. Today, we are starting a brand new feature called Mistakes and Mishap Mondays and we are opening it up with a personal story about when my hang on back protein skimmer overflowed. Causing a bit of a disaster.

You may be wondering just what this section of Simple Reefs is about? Well, it’s a little different from our usual articles which, mainly, focus on offering up advice on how you can own a marine aquarium without breaking the bank. Instead, this section is dedicated to the mistakes I have made during my marine aquarium ownership life.

After all, it is these mistakes that have given me the knowledge that I can share with you. Mondays are pretty grim so I will be bringing you these stories on a regular basis to kick off your week with a laugh and, maybe, a lesson. Today’s mistake came with a hang on back protein skimmer. Something we have been talking about a lot lately.

How I Started With Marine Fishkeeping

We have been talking about protein skimmers a ton this past few weeks. We have recently placed the focus on to hang on back protein skimmers, in particular. After all, that’s how I got my start in marine aquarium ownership.

My father passed away, leaving behind an empty, 260 litre, freshwater aquarium with a nice wave design. I grew up with freshwater aquariums and had a few of my own in the past. Meaning I really didn’t want to throw it away. I, also, didn’t much fancy starting a freshwater tank. Being perfectly honest, outside of various shrimp, I find freshwater a bit dull.

With this in mind, I decided to finally fulfil a dream I have had for quite awhile by starting my own marine aquarium. At first, I only wanted invertebrates. Skunk cleaner shrimp were the first thing that ever caught my eye when it came to marine aquarium inhabitants. My only real goal was to have a tank filled with rock, a bunch of colourful hermit crabs and a few cleaner shrimp.

A Vision Betrayed

Naturally, it didn’t take long for me to betray that vision. I mean, sure, I had my cleaner shrimp. But now I decided that it might be nice to add a couple of clown fish. Then I added a pair of Banggai Cardinals (More on those in a future mistakes and mishap Mondays article), then a Coral Beauty Dwarf Angel. I then decided that it might be nice to throw in a few pieces of soft coral.

After awhile, it became obvious that my hang on back filter wasn’t going to cut it. I needed something that could remove the dissolved organics from my water so that I wouldn’t need to change such drastic amounts of water to keep my residents happy. A protein skimmer was the obvious solution.

Obviously, I didn’t want to have a protein skimmer sitting in my display and I didn’t have a sump. So the next option was a hang on back protein skimmer. I mean, hang on back protein skimmers have a ton of benefits and the downsides didn’t seem all that big of a problem. I went ahead and purchased the Bubble Magus E3 hang on back protein skimmer and set it up.

Hang on Back Protein Skimmers Woes

There were a few niggles during setup, as you might expect. The clip that attaches the protein skimmer to the aquarium snapped before I had even had chance to set it up. A bit frustrating but, apparently, a common issue with this particular brand of skimmer. I didn’t trust gluing it in case the glue failed. But I managed to work around it and wedged some stuff behind the skimmer to keep it from leaning back against the wall.

Lots of trial and error dialling the protein skimmer in commenced. Including mouthfuls of saltwater as you have to suck through the airline to get the siphon going. Yuk! It took a few days to stop producing micro bubbles and develop a nice coating of film. Eventually, however, it was good to go. This thing worked great! It was pulling out dark brown skimmate and did a fantastic job.

I felt like a proper marine aquarium owner with my live rock, marine fish, invertebrates, coral and protein skimmer. Bit sad, really, but that’s part of the fun, right? Now, I had experienced a few spills, here and there, but nothing major. Nothing even remotely close to what was soon to happen. I was about to make a huge mistake that no amount of preparation could prevent.

Where Did it All Go Wrong?

My aquarium was, obviously, still pretty new at this point. Less than six months old. I was going through the uglies so there was a decent amount of hair algae on my bright white dry rock and a lot of cyanobacteria. I made a huge mistake when starting my marine aquarium that I will talk about in the future. Needless to say, this caused my ugly stage to be a hell of a lot worse. So bad, in fact, that it was really starting to drag my morale down quite a bit.

It felt as though it was going on forever. I spent more time picking hair algae off the rocks and sucking up slimy red cyanobacteria than I did enjoying the tank. What were those lousy reef hermit crabs, that I spent a lot of money on, doing, as well? I seemed to have managed to buy the only hermit crabs ever that were on a permanent diet. I barely ever saw them chomping away on the hair algae. Most of the time they would just meet up under some rocks to chat about their crabby business.

This wasn’t what the marine aquarium ownership experience was supposed to be. It was supposed to be fluorescing coral, brightly coloured fish, interesting shrimp, and adorable hermit crabs. It was supposed to be impressing my friends with a cool looking aquarium. Not being perpetually ashamed of a tank that looked like it hadn’t had a water change, or any maintenance, in years. Where did it all go wrong? Does anyone else look back on that early marine aquarium naivety and smile just a little when they think of how hopeful you were?

A Huge Mistake

I finally found myself getting on top of the hair algae with the help of a pair of tuxedo urchins. Both of which ate the hair algae and fashioned impressive looking wigs out of it. That left me with one enemy, the cyanobacteria. This stuff was stubborn! I decided it was time to go to war with it and there was not going to be any treaty preventing the use of chemicals. I ordered some Blue Life Cyano RX.

This was a huge mistake! I will go into the specifics of why this was a mistake in the future. As it pertains to this article, however, it was the effect it had on my hang on back protein skimmer that we are interested in. Now, you want to switch your protein skimmer off while treating with chemicals. I knew this and this was no problem. I turned off my protein skimmer and treated the tank.

Amazingly, it worked. In fact, it removed every little last hint of cyano from the aquarium. It was a miracle and I couldn’t be more pleased. No hair algae and, now, no cyano. My aquarium was starting to look pretty great!

I gave it a week for the treatment to be absorbed by some granulated carbon and tried my protein skimmer again. Let’s just say, the water climbed in that reaction chamber like I was sucking it out of the aquarium using a 5000 LPH pump. I quickly turned it off. No amount of adjusting the water level and air flow would make this work. I needed more carbon, more time, and a big water change. Or so I thought.

My Hang on Back Protein Skimmer Overflowed!

A week, and at least two decent water changes, later. I figured we were ready to go. I tentatively fired my hang on back protein skimmer back up and watched. It seemed absolutely fine. Maybe even a little slow to fill, in fact. I guess the treatment had completely gone and we were back to normal. I dialled my protein skimmer in, as usual, and left it to do what it was doing.

No more than thirty minutes later, I can hear the distinct sound of foamy water hitting the floor. My fiancée noticed it and called me in to the room with no small hint of urgency in her voice. Somehow, the protein skimmer which, moments before, had seemed completely fine. Had suddenly started running incredibly wet and overflowed all over the floor.

I am not sure how long it had been doing this but the floor was very wet, the cabinet was wet, and my fish were looking slightly concerned about the rapidly dropping water level of the tank. Absolute disaster and a very good idea of how badly things can go wrong with hang on back protein skimmers. We turned the protein skimmer off, grabbed both of our carpet cleaners and began sucking the water up.

Disaster Slightly Averted

We managed to suck up the vast majority of the water, luckily, thanks to us having multiple carpet cleaners. This could have been absolutely awful and, the annoying thing is, this wasn’t the last time it happened. This protein skimmer managed to overflow on a number of occasions.

It wasn’t even down to chemical treatments. I am assuming oils from cooking managed to set it off when we forgot to run the extractor fan. Smoke from a fire outside seemed to do it (we live rurally near farmland). Errant fumes from a candle. Coral food.

Anything could set this thing off and if you didn’t spot it climbing, you could be in for disaster. It was weeks before I felt comfortable enough to switch it back on and I was paranoid for the rest of the time I owned it. I doubt either of us will forget that distinctive sound of water hitting the floor.

Lessons From My Mistake

The thing you can take from my stupidity is to be very careful when using a hang on back protein skimmer. They can overflow easily and most people who have owned them have experienced this. Don’t ever use chemical treatments with them as it can make dialling them back in incredibly difficult. Keep the tank away from the wall so you can clean up spills. Make sure you have something absorbent to hand. Keep electrics far away from the skimmer and always have loops in your wires to prevent water trailing down them.

You want to know the final part of this story? The little bit of added insult to injury? Well, within a few weeks, the cyanobacteria returned and you know what it brought with it? More hair algae. It seemed as though the, supposedly safe, chemical treatment is actually quite efficient at killing a lot of the good bacteria populating your rocks. Meaning they are fair game for algae again. That’s a mistake and mishap Mondays story for another day. Thanks for reading and spending your time at Simple Reefs.