DIY skimmer help!!

[tava716]

My tank is 10 weeks old. 90 gallon with 10gallon sump, and this DIY skimmer. 3inch pvc. 4 feet tall (can't) see whole thing in photo. Only getting what you see in the photo for skimmate every couple of days. running 2 3 inch limewood stones with a double output pump per stone. Can anyone see an issue with this?. 3 damsils, 1 royal gramma , 1 brisstle star, 55lb live rock. Should I add 2 more airstones (being that I can run 4 with the 2 pumps if I need to)? Water level is at the bottom of the piece of pvc fitting where it starts to taperoff. Please advise.

thaks a lot folks!!

 

[bradreef]

wood airstones are so 1995. you need to upgrade to a big air pump and ceramic airstones. check out mojoreefs skimmer posts. This is how we do around reeffrontiers. that 2006 s(*t for your reef. Look at reefkeeping online mag TOTM, He is using ceramic also.

 

[wrightme43]

www.aquaticecosystems.com sells them.

 

[tava716]

Are you talking about these??? These diffusers are made from fused alumina. They produce a bubble size of 1.0-2.0 mm

 

[wrightme43]

That will do it. A couple rena micro bubblers will do it. Steve

 

[Meche]

Another possible problem from an engineering stand point:

each air stone/block is not recieving full output of your pump. Because your skimmer is 4' tall you are loosing quite a bit of head; approx 2psi. This may not sound like much but it can all but stop your airflow. That is fact.

Someone that has been in the hobby might be able to correct me on this next part. I don't know what kind of pump you have but rena rates their pumps to tank size (gal). To me this only makes sense if they are actually refering to tank depth. So when they say the Rena300 is for tanks up to 75gal, I think they mean it will pump through a 24" head (std 75gal tanks are 24" deep). Remember you have 48" of head, you have a long way to go. Now rena also says that the 300 will pump a maximum of 200l/h; that is only at 0 pressure loss. At 24" it might be around half of that. Then add 24" more head loss and you end up with waaaaayy less than what you thought.

You may have better luck with a non-hobby pump or a redesign of your reaction chamber (shorter and fatter) or a conversion to a venturi type.

 

[reeftnk101]

The Tetratec Deep Water air pumps would also be good. They make different sizes and they are rated by water depth.
Matt

 

[Krish]

James hasn't been around in a while, but since he started this thread, he has bought himself a ASM skimmer and ditched the PVC thing altogether