Dratino

hey just a question out of curiosity, what is priming, and how/why would you do priming on chaetos?

there's a head loss of about 1.3m, rio20 should still be able to give reasonable pump power with that amount of head loss. anyway my skimmer is giving me the problem of not producing fine bubbles, the bubbles just shoot straight up to the water surface in the reaction chamber, can't seem to control the air intake part, cos even though i've closed the air tap, bubbles are still forming... probably a air leak somewhere gotta try solve the problem... my skimmer giving so much problem

thanks bros for the advice. based on comparison between MD55 and rio pumps, i've bought a Rio 20HF which has comparable pump rate to that of the MD55. I've got 1 more question though... i fired up my skimmer last night, but found that the flow rate of water into the skimmer was significantly lower than when the pump was working without the skimmer. Microbubbles etc were fine. On estimate, the the flow rate of water into the skimmer was about 40% of the usual flow rate had the pump been working freely on its own (with head loss factored in)... ive dismantled my skimmer to check, the mechanism that is inhibiting flow rate seems to be a black device that allows the mixing of the air-water intake. No pipe blockage anywhere in the skimmer also. I'm not sure whether beckette models are meant to work in this manner, just concerned whether my skimmer would be working at maximum efficiency. Could anyone experienced with beckette skimmers help advice me on this?

im using a beckette model... about 30" model...

Can I get some advice as to what kind of pumps, or which brands, are suitable for use with skimmers? And also, how do we know which pump capacity is suitable for use with my skimmer? ie. does more powerful pump = higher skimming effectiveness?