Bored! So lets design a Skimmer!

[mojoreef]

They are kind of all over the place Skimmy if you do a search on micro bubble diffusers one that caught my eye was this one Alab, LLC - Micro-Fine Diffusers
the bubbles are less then .5mm, check out the video on it, real nice. I am just looking for this performance but with a small size that can fit in my skimmer.

Mojo

 

[Skimmy]

6''dia x6'' tall mix chamber with bubble plate, fed by meshwheel thats recirc'd below the mix chamber, fresh feed is above the mix chamber by mj 1200.
What I can't figure but am guessing at is the meshwheel pump is a closed loop? yet the higher the water column the less air is drawn, pump depth is constant and water column rises above sump height, where is the reduction happening at? If the pump is set up to run as the only pump (draw water from sump) it pushes to the top of the body no problem and tons of air.
Mojo your idea is sound, Ive had several skimmers I made like this but always recirc'd from the upper body, this is different.

it sounds like your putting just enough back pressure on the pump to decrease preformance when you raise the water level in the skimmer body.
some pin/mesh wheel pumps like a bit of back pressure, some dont. i think it has to do with the design of the volute/venturi and the pump power
vs. the volume of the reaction chamber.
i wouldnt think a laguna/askoll pump like that would b so easily effected, im suprised.

the other thing is, maybe there arent enough holes in your bubble plate?? i'll look to see if you posted a pic.
and you probably dont need to be feeding a mj-1200 at full throttle into the skimmer... that too might be effecting the amount of back pressure on the recirc pump, depending upon your skimmer outlet size.

also, after looking at the pics more, i think the inlet diameter to the recirc pump is too big...it should be the actual size of the pump inlet on the volute.

 

[Skimmy]

They are kind of all over the place Skimmy if you do a search on micro bubble diffusers one that caught my eye was this one Alab, LLC - Micro-Fine Diffusers
the bubbles are less then .5mm, check out the video on it, real nice. I am just looking for this performance but with a small size that can fit in my skimmer.

Mojo

damn, that looks awesome!! if it was only circular in shape! and less than 12x12"

 

[mojoreef]

Well you know what, we could get real simple though??? What if you would just take a compartment in your sump?? then walled, put a solid plate of acrylic on top of it, then just cut a hole in the top of that compartment, slide your old skimmer tube and cup into it with a little glue?? The drop in this puppy with an air pump and feed it off the drain line?? And they do have a 2 1/2 x 12 also


No no No that would be way to simplistic and way to cheap right?? lol


Food for thought?


Mojo

 

[steven11]

Well you know what, we could get real simple though??? What if you would just take a compartment in your sump?? then walled, put a solid plate of acrylic on top of it, then just cut a hole in the top of that compartment, slide your old skimmer tube and cup into it with a little glue?? The drop in this puppy with an air pump and feed it off the drain line?? And they do have a 2 1/2 x 12 also


No no No that would be way to simplistic and way to cheap right?? lol


Food for thought?


Mojo

Damn you mojo. I'm waiting to hear back on an air pump. May be able to get this together soon.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

 

[Guerry]

so do we have some good links for air defusers that would work in our skimmers

 

[mojoreef]

Well its all kind of linked together. What is the size of the skimmer/sump section? what kind of pump are you getting?? and so on.

So if it were me and I had an old skimmer that wasnt good, or didnt have a skimmer, I would skip the whole need for a individual skimmer all together. I would instead look to convert a section (preferably the drain side 1st compartment) into a skimmer itself. If you follow the link I gave above they have a model that is only 2 1/2 x 12 inches, so you could just glue in a seperation wall in that first section to fit those diffusers and then cut a square to fit on top of it, from their you can cut out a hole to fit the neck and cup section of your old skimmer, or in your case and the need to build, lol build one to go on top. From their I would divert water directly from one of your drain lines (that way you dont have to buy any pumps) and then put an output in. From their just find a air pump that will accomodate those two diffusers??

So a hundred bucks in luft air pumps? a hundred in diffusers?? a few buck in acrylic?? I know its not 500 or 1000 but hey you could always send me the cash??? :high5:

Mojo

 

[Guerry]

your checks in the mail LOL

 

[Sasquatch]

OK SAS so if I am looking at it correctly then water from the recirc is going into that cup like thing? So where is the water from the recirc going back in?? also the open tee is the water in from sump correct?
Mojo

output side of pump is the white pipe union and that goes directly into the mix chamber 6x6 pvc bottom sealed top bubble plate.
the open T is the feed

 

[Sasquatch]

it sounds like your putting just enough back pressure on the pump to decrease preformance when you raise the water level in the skimmer body.
some pin/mesh wheel pumps like a bit of back pressure, some dont. i think it has to do with the design of the volute/venturi and the pump power
vs. the volume of the reaction chamber.
i wouldnt think a laguna/askoll pump like that would b so easily effected, im suprised.

the other thing is, maybe there arent enough holes in your bubble plate?? i'll look to see if you posted a pic.
and you probably dont need to be feeding a mj-1200 at full throttle into the skimmer... that too might be effecting the amount of back pressure on the recirc pump, depending upon your skimmer outlet size.

also, after looking at the pics more, i think the inlet diameter to the recirc pump is too big...it should be the actual size of the pump inlet on the volute.

I don't think its back pressure as its a closed loop, there is no head involved, my "guess" is the bubbles being drawn in are more than the volute can handle, combined with the reduction in ability to draw air from depth of water, bit complicated but thats why recirc n/w probably are not ideal for this where the air stones should really shine.

"also, after looking at the pics more, i think the inlet diameter to the recirc pump is too big...it should be the actual size of the pump inlet on the volute."

the actual intake side of the pump is stock so that didn't change, you still need to create some draw for air intake... maybe a small reduction in diameter will increase draw? more experiments lol

"the other thing is, maybe there arent enough holes in your bubble plate?? i'll look to see if you posted a pic.
and you probably dont need to be feeding a mj-1200 at full throttle into the skimmer... that too might be effecting the amount of back pressure on the recirc pump, depending upon your skimmer outlet size."

no burping at all as Id think you'd get if not enough holes.
mj 1200 is 295 gph - head about 200? maybe, next go round will be an mj600 see what that does, with the enhanced dwell time I don't know if faster turnovers are good or bad

 

[rebou]

Is there any update on the skimmer? I'm currently building a 30 gallons reef tank and I want to build a diy protien skimmer. I would really like to see what you come up with because there is a lot of diy skimmers but I don't know which one is good or not. I would like to build one for a sump that is not to big. If you have any suggestion, let me know!!!

By the way I'm a noob in reef tank and this is my first post.... If you have any good source of information for a newcomer, please let me know.

Ludo

 

[mojoreef]

Hey Rebou welcome to RF. This thread has kind of morphed into alot of different directions. So we have tried to do a recirc with a down draft skimmer but couldnt do it as we lost the ability to make bubbles when we reduce the flow. Then we played with the needle wheel style skimmers and got alot closer but the end product was just even crappier then the skimmer was when we started. So now we have kind of come full circle and are playing in the air driven skimmer. Alot of the conversations on this have occured via the phone and similar so we need to bring this thread back up to date.

So here we are.

We can achieve the number we are looking for in contact time/dwell/bombardment and so on with an air driven skimmer, so right now we are matching up pumps to diffusers in order to find the cheapest most effective means to do it. SInce it takes a bit of time to order the parts and then install and test its taking a bit of time inbetween. Guerry is looking at a stand alone skimmer run with a luft air pump and several types of stones, I am working on a built into the sump type of skimmer, one where you can take a existing sump, add a little acrylic, with a difusser and pump and actually make it part of your sump. So on that one I am going to take mine and make those mods but on a larger scale and then we have one other fellow that has a smaller normal size sump and we are going to do the mods on it to create it. So bear with us a bit, we have new parts on order.


Mojo

 

[rebou]

Thank you very much for the reply. I'm just starting my tank (there's no water yet...) so I'm starting from scratch. I want to build my sump first and include a skimmer and a refugium. Do you have any recommendation?

Thank you
Ludovic

 

[mojoreef]

I will once this unit comes in, so if you can wait for a week?? then I can give you some solid.

On another note I just got off the phone with the alab guys I linked to earlier, and they said that they run the one square foot diffusers on an aquarium air pump to test for product life time. They told me that the largest whisper air pump will run their 12 inch diffuser, which sounds unreal! The bubbles look more like smoke then air bubbles and average .5 mm bubble. So anyway I ordered one and we will put up some pics and a review as soon as it arrives. If that is the case though you could easily put one in a sump compartment and the just lid and tube on top of it.

Mike

 

[rebou]

Thank you, I will wait for the next development. One week is not to bad to wait.

Ludo

 

[Guerry]

Welcome Aboard rebou, You've found a great site here. There is a bunch great members here willing to help with any questons you may have.

 

[rebou]

I have a quick question so I can start designing my sub. What footprint do you think the skimmer will take? How big should the overflow chamber be to be able to host a good variety of skimmer?

Ludo

 

[mojoreef]

Well thats a whole different animal to what we are doing rebou. We are designing the skimmer as part of the actual sump, most skimmers are seperate units that you either drop into the sump or run next to. If you are looking for a independant style unit then their are hundreds to choose from and they all do pretty much the same.

Mojo

 

[rebou]

Ok then, I read all the thread but didn't understand it that way. That's even better! I will wait for more updates on the subject.

Ludo

 

[mojoreef]

Ok so I got the diffuser and hooked it up last night. this is what it looks like.

and here is the top.

So this thing is weird. The material on top, the actual diffuser is made of a material, kind of looks like denim?? I talked with the techy and he say that it is a material that has been treated with a variety of compounds and then sandwiched in with urathanes and so on. Anyway different. So I hooked it up and it took about an hour to wet and normalize, BUT then it started blowing bubbles and let me tell you the bubbles are the smallest things I have ever seen, I mean the overall air bubbles column looks like smoke their so small. SO now the brain is going on over load, lol

So this diffuser will handle 15 lpm so its going to need an air pump that is somewhere in the range of $ 50-60 bucks?? So we are going to take this unit with an air pump to a few different tank with the cone style skimmer and do some visual comparisons??