Cone Skimmer thread, up for Discussion!

[Reefdaddy1]

Also, if you had 15-20" of your skimmer full of air you'd have a seaclown : P .....joking with you man.

But like Jeff said, the cone has a huge foam head, like a beckett skimmer. The foam keeps bonding with doc's more and more as more foam pushes its way up, this gives the skimmer excellent dwell time. The big difference between the becketts and cone's is the fact that the beckett has to create a ton of water flow to pull the big air #'s llike 50+scfh. And they use lots of watts to do so. The cone uses 1/3 the wattage, pulls the same if not more air 60+ scfh and uses a ton less waterflow. And the reaction chamber is much less turbulent. The new way of skimming. Your old school Mojo : ) But your right about an air driven skimmer, there tough to beat done correctly, especially if you use an alita air pump : (). Drool. Check out Jnarrow's big ugly skimmer, but it pulls 105lpm.....yes, lpm at 100w.

:lol: jnarowe's skimmer may be ugly, but man is it efficient and effective...pulling 2-3 GALLONS of nasty funk from the water a day!!!

Have either one read Mojo's thread on his build? If not read the 2 he built Bigger and badder then any i saw.
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4722

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7590

Some of the pics are missing but you will get the point.

 

[luke33]

Bob, for 04' it was a great design, now, not so much. For a 6' skimmer to work well i'd use air stones and an alita pump. OR pump's for such a tall skimmer will not work because of the backpressure. They are not going to be very efficient energy wise either. Now a days i'd turn a 6' skimmer with pry 20scfh of air into a 26" skimmer with 60-90scfh air but at half the wattage. With no wet neck ofcourse : ) But for a few yrs ago that was a pretty sweet skimmer, and i'm sure it worked well. I just don't want a 6' piece of acrylic tubing in my living room........well, the wifey wouldn't anyhow!

 

[mojoreef]

Ahh I thought I might get a few responces off of that last reply

To me, the "laws" you are talking about are definitely not "LAWS"...they all appear to have come from Escobal, who did some pioneering work in skimmer design and though, but I would say that a lot of what He wrote could be argued strongly against these days.

Actually the laws/principles I am refering to dont come from him, they area just the priciples/laws. Escobar never built or designed a skimmer, he wrote a book that had the math behind principles used to design equipment for the aquaculture industry. Alot of the laws/principles are the same for a variety of equipment (UV/chiller/heater and so on)

The strong point of the cone is in it's dwell time, not so much the dwell in the body, but the dwell in the foam head. Now, You are not getting 120+ sec dwell time, but if the organics are making it into the foam head, chances are they are being removed. I really think you'd have to see what really goes on in one of these cone bodies to understand.

JCTewks I agree that whatever organics make it into the foam head are most likely going to be removed. But my friend thats not the dwell time. The organics come into a skimmer (any skimmer) via the water, they are attached to water molecules. Each organic molecule has a different strength of bond to the water mole, we are using the only two methods available to break that bond an rebond it to an air bubble. Mechanically we beat he hell out it by have air bubbles constantly bombard it, this happens where the water and the air colide with each other (you see all the air bubbles traveling through the water) not when its in the foam column, when its in the column its not in the presence of the water (where the organics are bound) at this point the deal is done or not already, its like being in one of those tubes where the money is floating around and you get to grab it. When your in the tube your making money, once your out your just counting? make sence?? The other process is the chemical reaction. This is where the bond has already been broken and now you have to have a clean surface that the organic can bond to. The clean surface is the air bubble, the succes of this process is based on a few things. One is that we have alot of them as their will be a lot of organics, the other is that we allow enough time to have he varying organics to attach, from thier its into the column and out. Now you dont have to have 4 mins or 2 or 10 seconds its all on how much and of what kind you want to remove. thats all.

Really, there will always be skimmer debates...it's like ford vs chevy vs mopar...there is clearly no winner but almost everyone has a side

For me.. I dont have a side, but its like me saying they all have combustion engines, and the engine is attached to the tranny and then the so on and so.

foam keeps bonding with doc's more and more as more foam pushes its way up, this gives the skimmer excellent dwell time.

see above, but buddy thats not where the reaction occurs. Take a peek at any large skimmer (10K and above) in any aquaculture or simular facility. the mixing chamber (where and air and water colide) is 85% of the unit, the balance is just where the end product (foam) seperates form the body.

The big difference between the becketts and cone's is the fact that the beckett has to create a ton of water flow to pull the big air #'s llike 50+scfh. And they use lots of watts to do so. The cone uses 1/3 the wattage, pulls the same if not more air 60+ scfh and uses a ton less waterflow. And the reaction chamber is much less turbulent.

Agreed for sure when comparing the power comsumtion between these two the cone thingy is definately less on the electrical bill. On the flow inside I am not so sure, from what I read the becketts are running 2000gph pumps and the cones are running 1200 right?? that and the cones are smaller so maybe more turbulant in the cone? unless I misread.

Also, if you had 15-20" of your skimmer full of air you'd have a seaclown

No what I mean is that 85% of the fluid in the skimmer has to be water, the balance air, so just take you skimmer and plug the air, the fluid level in the skimmer will come down, now just look at it and measure.

Are you saying that "quality" skimate should be clear?

Yes and no, more to prove a point. If you buy a cheap microscope put some skimmate under it and take a peek, you will find a ton of life in it (and that not including bacteria). The point was skimmers like the cone and the beckett and any other skimmer that has to use a pump to generate air usually becomes a freight train of foam (or foam cannon as someone here mentioned) all sorts of life gets caught up in that and ejected. F0r me I am kind of a nuke it guy so I am not worried about it, but for those folks that add stuff like rotifers, live food, aminos..stuff like that..well your going backwards.

mike

 

[mojoreef]

Ahh Luke you must have posted while I was. My skimmer handles a 1000 gallons of water so its big. But all that is scaleable, you could get a $100 air pump pushing 600lph at around 13 watts, so no biggie their.

Mike

 

[luke33]

Mike, the askoll on the cone pushes roughly 500-600gph waterflow. It pulls 2000lph air. For a beckett to pull that kind of air its going to be pushing 2k+ gph and the bubble diameter is going to be quite a bit larger.

I think alot of these large skimmers your talking about will be replaced with large cone's in the future. Look at the atb 5' cone that has two askoll 4200's on it. Pulling something silly like 8000lph air.

 

[luke33]

Hey Marc, remember my remark earlier about a single sicce cone beating a double sicce cylinder.......take a look, and take a look at the conditions, as in the cone is after the first skimmer and after carbon too.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1529373

 

[loohunter]

hey mike when you are saying the water volume in the skimmer should take up 85% of the skimmer are you talking about just the skimmer body or the body and neck included

 

[amashun]

I'm not very good at skimmer but interesting to read through it. in regards to the turbulant in the small body of cone, wouldn't a diffuser solve the problem?

 

[JCTewks]

there is already a diffuser in the skimmer...and there is ZERO turbulence!

 

[mojoreef]

Loo

hey mike when you are saying the water volume in the skimmer should take up 85% of the skimmer are you talking about just the skimmer body or the body and neck included

Just the actually water. If you look at any skimmer where the air and water are mixing, that is what I am refering to, So the easy way to do it is to put a tape to it and measure it when it is running both air and water, the plug the air intake and the water level should drop. Measure again and you get the difference. Make sence?

there is already a diffuser in the skimmer...and there is ZERO turbulence!

Actually looking at he vid's posted it doesnt look like their is alot of turbulance in the mixing chamber JCT. To much would of coarse cause the bubbles to burst then blend and make really large bubbles. Got a question for ya, I see the plate inside the skimmer (is that the diffuser your refering to?) When looking at the end foam at the mouth of the neck you can see a bunch of reall big bubbles come through, we used to call that burping. In the past when I have put a plate like that over the bubbles I got the same thing, has anyone tried it with out that plate or is it fixed in place??

Mike

 

[Skimmy]

Hey Marc, remember my remark earlier about a single sicce cone beating a double sicce cylinder.......take a look, and take a look at the conditions, as in the cone is after the first skimmer and after carbon too.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1529373

mkay, downstream after carbon, gfo, and the swc 250, and it's still pulling more nog??? pretty insane
and this is all on a 1000g system with more nog than any one skimmer can handle, correct?

 

[reedman]

I have a hard time with the use of how much stuff a skimmer pulls being used as a measure of its effectiveness. It seems to me that if the skimmer is efficient and sized for the system then over time you should pull less and less out since you should have already pulled the really nasty out. Once you reach and equilibrium of sorts it should be a relatively constant and consistent amount of skimmate (not necessarily a bunch of nasty). Am I off base here?

 

[luke33]

mkay, downstream after carbon, gfo, and the swc 250, and it's still pulling more nog??? pretty insane
and this is all on a 1000g system with more nog than any one skimmer can handle, correct?

No, thats on a 180g.

 

[luke33]

I have a hard time with the use of how much stuff a skimmer pulls being used as a measure of its effectiveness. It seems to me that if the skimmer is efficient and sized for the system then over time you should pull less and less out since you should have already pulled the really nasty out. Once you reach and equilibrium of sorts it should be a relatively constant and consistent amount of skimmate (not necessarily a bunch of nasty). Am I off base here?

Nope, your on base : ) When you have a skimmer you should pull consistent amounts of skimmate per day-week-month. If nothing changes. Obviously if you add more livestock you should pull more skimmate. Now if you have a skimmer and pull consistent amts of skimmate and add a new skimmer and it pulls twice the skimmate per day as the old consistently, its working better.

 

[luke33]

Loo

Just the actually water. If you look at any skimmer where the air and water are mixing, that is what I am refering to, So the easy way to do it is to put a tape to it and measure it when it is running both air and water, the plug the air intake and the water level should drop. Measure again and you get the difference. Make sence?


Actually looking at he vid's posted it doesnt look like their is alot of turbulance in the mixing chamber JCT. To much would of coarse cause the bubbles to burst then blend and make really large bubbles. Got a question for ya, I see the plate inside the skimmer (is that the diffuser your refering to?) When looking at the end foam at the mouth of the neck you can see a bunch of reall big bubbles come through, we used to call that burping. In the past when I have put a plate like that over the bubbles I got the same thing, has anyone tried it with out that plate or is it fixed in place??

Mike

Mike, the cone uses a bubble plate. You can take the top off it if you want but that will cause more turbulence. As of now its flowing perfectly straight up with no turbulence at all. The smoothest transition upwards i've seen in a skimmer so far.

 

[Maxx]

Man you guys are making me work here

Tough to answer it depends on the compound and its make up. Most protiens (bad word by the way) are made up of many differing moles (what in detritus??) so your going to get many differing bonds when it comes to Philics attaching to phobics. As in their could be a component in the phobic that resists bonding from a component in the philic. To be honest according to some testing done for the aquaculture industry some protiens can take up to 4 minutes, but I think at some point we have to say good enough. Does that make sence??

No...Bad Maxx ..bad Maxx . The concept of a cone is probibly just that the top narrows so its easier to raise the foam through the skimmer chamber. Heres the big hint..or the point I am trying to make, STOP thinking about pumps, Stop thinking about shape and start thinking about the laws that govern skimming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you are looking for cheap heres one for ya. Put a baffle in your sump where the water pours over the top and out the bottom, on the bottom put a source of air (say stones for ease), have a collection tray attached to the top of the baffle to catch the skimmate. As long as you follow the laws you can skimm properly.

Some other thoughts. Most all organics (once skimmed) are clear?? how come yours is so dark?? what are you actually skimming??

Only 15 to 20% of total water/foam in your skimmer is supposed to be bubbles, whats yours like?? plug the venturies and take a peek??

If your skimmer is powering out foam are you not frieght training whatever gets in it way?? good or bad??

The math is their just do some calculations and you can see where you sit.


ok back into my corner I go.


Mike

Okay Mike, I'm tracking you. So the most important things to know about skimming are the dwell time, bombardment rate, and flow through rate of your skimmer?
If this is correct then we can use the formula you gave us on page pg 5 post 73.... [(system volume divided by 600) x 9.2 = number of hours your system's volume is processed]...to calculate the flow through rate that will ensure 99% of our system water is processed.
And we can calculate the bombardment rate by dividing the dwell time of water by the dwell time of air in the skimmer. You state the ideal bombardment rate is 10. Why is 10 the magic number? Not trying to be difficult, just trying to understand. We could just take your word for it, but then thats counter to what your trying to teach here and elsewhere .

Mike, the askoll on the cone pushes roughly 500-600gph waterflow. It pulls 2000lph air. For a beckett to pull that kind of air its going to be pushing 2k+ gph and the bubble diameter is going to be quite a bit larger.

I think alot of these large skimmers your talking about will be replaced with large cone's in the future. Look at the atb 5' cone that has two askoll 4200's on it. Pulling something silly like 8000lph air.

If I'm following Mike correctly,he's saying these pumps are pushing water through the skimmer too fast to strip all the DOC's from the water. If the pump is moving 500 gph, that's 8.3 gallons a minute, which is fine if your skimmer holds 16.5-24.9 gallons of water....

Nick

 

[Maxx]

So the question becomes, how do we increase the dwell time of these skimmers?

Nick

 

[JCTewks]

There are only 2 ways to increase "dwell time"...HUGE skimmers, and recirc's with slow flow through!

But really by Mike's thought process, a recirc with a slow through rate would not be ideal either, only a really large skimmer will get the job done. But, to counter that, I've read of people that have removed large volume, high contact (mikes ideal skimmer) from their systems and replaced them with smaller higher air skimmers...and the smaller skimmers have increased the ORP, water quality, and water clarity in the system...the corals responded better to the smaller BK skimmers better as well.

 

[luke33]

I've ran very long dwell times in recirc's and to be honest i've had much better luck with single pass skimmers pulling tons of air. Mike believes in his method but I would rather take mine any day of the week. Skimmers are a to each his own : ) But i have no doubt the cone would outdo the 6' he's using.......why are all you guys from WA round here!

 

[Maxx]

Luke,
I'm glad you're contributing to this thread because you and Mark/SkimmerWhisperer are intelligent guys and know alot about these things.......but you do realize that Mike's posted up facts which can be verufied or disproved and you've been posting up anecdotal data which cannot, right?

I'm not choosing sides, just pointing something out.

Nick