Euroreef Sponge Bubble Difuser - Don't use as Prescribed

[kwirky]

I finally figured out the troubles to dialing in my euroreef skimmer. finally!

I was cleaning the foam difuser on the outlet pipe on a weekly basis, and THAT was the cause of the euroreef going out of whack when I couldn't understand it. I ended up cutting the foam difuser in half, and situated it so it's BELOW the output level of the pipe, so the water falls on it, rather than flows through it.

here's the problem with putting the foam as instructed, over the output pipe completely:
See, as the foam filter gets filled with gunk, the water has to go higher to get out of the foam. This causes the air-foam in the reaction chamber to rise higher as it gets gunked up. The skimmer was running beautifully every time I dialed it in for two days, then all of a sudden I'd get home and the cup would be full after only 4 hours running!

Taking the foam off completely makes it real noisy as the water splashes into the sump, so here's my solution:

Cut the foam so that it slides onto the output tube, and rests JUST below the outlet of the tube, allowing the water to fall through it, but it doesn't HAVE to flow through it. Quiet output, and no risk to your skimmate cup overflowing because the sponge is gunked up for some unexpected reason.

still gotta clean the sponge religiously though