Help!! Reef Octopus Skimmer Issue. Please help.

I have a Reef Octopus NWB-150 skimmer and it has developed a problem lately. The “Air Intake device” as pointed out in the manual, will not stay secured in place. It quickly works itself loose and then a TON of micro bubbles come out from the “intake” area of the pump instead of going into the skimmer chamber. Eventually, the whole thing will just work its way off of the pump.

I’ve taken everything out and cleaned it, after noticing that sometime between the last cleaning of the collection cup (about a week ago) and today, it was completely off of the pump.

The “air intake device” section still has a rubber ring in place, and when the whole thing is attached to the pump and the “locking mechanism” is turned about 90 degrees to “lock” in place, it doesn’t actually lock. I don’t see any damage at all from anything, but it just doesn’t stay snugly in place.

What can I do to fix this? I bought the unit a couple of years ago, so I know that it isn’t under warranty any more, but there isn’t any visible damage from usage.

I’ve attached an image to show what part is coming loose.

 

I could see how the o-ring would "snug it up" a bit, but not sure how that would help when turning the large plastic plate that I circled to "lock" into place. Probably still a good step. Thanks.

The issue is with the large plastic plate that I have marked with the red circle. It just has 4 small plastic "legs" that are supposed to "grab" plastic tabs on the pump itself when turned 90 degrees. The only part that is threaded is the smaller piece right in the middle that has the vertical tube on it. That isn't leaking any air. Air only leaks when the larger plastic plate vibrates loose and then air leaks from all around that area.

With some monther's day stuff today, this will probably need to wait, but thanks.

 

Well, after a less than helpful set of exchanges via Coralvue's email support - I told them that it was out of warranty in my first message, yet they had me hunting for my original receipt from AC&C - just to come back and say 4 days later "that is out of warranty, you need to buy a replacement volute," which has been out of stock for months, "or a new pump."

Even though the pump works, and there is nothing broken, there was no support or ideas on how to fix the problem. Again, I know, not under warranty, but even a touch of empathy would have been nice. "Sorry that you are experiencing problems. Let me see if we have any ideas." would have been a nice change.

Anyway, in the end, after I got that message, and some "snarky comments" about how awesome their products are and that CLEARLY I must have broken something.... I fixed it. With a single rubber band.

Now, it isn't what you think. I don't have a rubber band wrapped around the pump and holding the volute in place. No. The problem is that there isn't any resistance once the volute is in place to hold the "locking plate" in place. So I separated them, and put one single rubber band at the base of the threaded part of the volute. This prevents the locking disk from being loose and provides enough friction for the locking tabs to hold in place.

Works great, and now I get ZERO microbubbles in my sump as well (apparently this was an issue from the start and I chalked it up as "that must be how it works).

Yes, I know that the rubber band will not last a real long time in saltwater, but it gets my skimmer working better than ever for now until I get an o-ring in there that is more durable.

Here is a picture sort of showing what I did.

 

Yeah, that was one of the reasons why I went with Reef Octopus at the time too. I heard great things about their products and support. After some digging, which really didn't take much, it sounds like a number of people have a "less than stellar" experience with the Coralvue email support guy. Seems like the same person that everyone gets and doesn't get a great response outside of "buy something new." Oh well, it is working like a champ now.