Extreme skimmer height

[DonW]

Any idea wether or not a real tall skimmer would perform better than the standard short one. I'm thinking 5 or 6" diameter 6 ft tall.

Don

 

[scytale]

Simultaneous "tall skimmer" and "skimmerless" threads??--you're a true Renaissance man!

 

[luke33]

Don, look at it like this. You have a 6' skimmer with 1000gph flowthrough pulling 1000lph air. You then have a 3' skimmer pulling 500gph flowthrough pulling 1000lph air. Both esentially have the same dwell time so they should perform the same. Thats why you see all the shorter skimmers these days that pull alot of air. They replace skimmers like the turbofloater and 6' asm's.

 

[DonW]

Thanks this was an idea for a garage prop system. So a couple of recirc pumps stuck in a 6 ft tube isn't really going do any better? Really it was a money saver idea since we already have a load of 5" cast tube.

Don

 

[luke33]

Its not going to hurt anything using the larger tube's. In theory it sounds correct but honestly there has to be an advantage using the 6' tubing. Not a ton, but i'd say some advantage. The biggest prob is all the backpressure on the pump at that height. Not alot of pump's do well with that much height. OR's, eheim's and large laguna's are going to be your best bet. There's so many pro's and con's when it comes to a 6' vs 3'. If you start from scratch your better off with the 3' due to cost and efficiency. Its much easier to inject air into a 3' skimmer than a 6' and its going to take less wattage to pull the air due to less backpressure on the pump. Its also easier to hide a smaller skimmer : ) The pro's of the 6' are mainly great dwell time. The cons are harder to inject air, eye sore to some and its going to take higher wattage to get the right amount of air.