OK, so I finally finished the skimmer. All that is left to do is to pop it in place and turn it on. I was going to try to do it tonite, but before I put the skimmer in place I need to tend to other stuff around where it is going to be located. Night time is the worst time to be moving important things or experiementing with anything. So, I will leave it for after wook tomorrow. I will post some pictures after I fire it up and will update after so many hours.
Here are just a gew shots of what it looks like now.
Thia is the drain line. I will eventually connect it directly to a bucket.
This is the air pump I ended up with. At 2.6 PSI of depth (depth inside the skimmer and resistance from airstones) it should be able to pump 3.5 CFM. That is exactly what the stones add up to.
This is the air supply manifold. It has a check valve to prevent water from back syphoning into the air pump ruining it. The T witht he valve is to be able to bleed air out as necessary. Since it is lower than the rest of things, if the check valve leaks, water should leave from there before reaching the pmp too.
This is the feeding pump. I will feed approx 750-800 gph plus whatever it takes for the wetneck to work.
Drain pipe
I ended up with 6 airstones of the 6" type. Each is rated at 0.5 CFM max.
Feeding port with wetneck valve
Originally, I was going to put in 8 airstones, but as you can see the lower part of the manifold would ahve hit with the drain elbow. So, I took the middle 2 of the lower section out.
Tp,prrpw"
Lift off !!!!!!!!!!!!!