Recirc vs stone vs 'all in one' skimmers

[khaosinc]

I'm curious as to the opinions of various styles of skimmers. Mostly the recirculating skimmers (one pump for air/moving water and another for feed) VS the more modern all in one skimmers and then the good old school air driven ones. My opinion/thinking has been it made more sense to control the flow to/from the skimmer seperatly from the amount of air pumped in to the system. Currently I run a Euro reef 1000. Most modern skimmers seem to have the pump do both jobs (feeding the skimmer w/ air and water) where as with mine I control both by the return line from my tank and 5 ehiem 1262's. Has always seemed to me everything else being equal that it would make even more sense to just have pumps just for the Air at that point. I know as it is I can pull nearly 5 gallons of goo a week out of it. (granted I have a decent fish load and am a compulsive overfeeder

Can anyone make some sense of this for me?

 

[Skimmy]

well, this used to be an even bigger deal back in the day, simply because venturi skimmer pumps and aspirating venuri pumps didnt have the air to water ratio that they do now...so you were constantly feeding the skimmer too much water vs. air... and hence one of the reasons why recirc's became popular... you could control the amount of water being processed (and it didnt matter what sump level it was in if they happen to be in a sump).

now, what i would like to see is someone make a big cone skimmer with an array of fine pore professional air diffusor stones under a nice bubble plate and blast that puppy with a nice massive air pump. you could take the bottom of the skimmer off and soak the stones in vinegar/muratic acid once a season and that would be it for maintenance...and of course it would have a seperate water pump to provide process water. for bigger systems this would be a great way to go, but the large air pump is noisy and would have to be dealt with...(mojo i think put his air pump outside for his air powered beast)

 

[khaosinc]

How much of a filter do you think it would take to run one off the Air compressor in my shop... I'm sure it would be more of one than the oil/air trap I use for painting cars..

 

[Skimmy]

...lol, a compressor???
jeez, i dunno... that is slightly larger than i was thinking...
and louder than hell...
i dont actually know alot about those larger air pumps...
will have to research..

 

[Myteemouse]

well if you already have the air compressor in your shop/ garage..
one could run a line to the skimmer and put it through a pressure regulator down to the right pressure and then to the air stones.

 

[khaosinc]

I already have a 80 gallon 120 cfm one in the shop, I suspect it would only have to run a couple times a day and it would be going through 2 insulated walls. My hearing is also horrible (to many years in the saw mills) I usually don't notice when its on unless I'm in the shop as it is.. so noise wouldn't be to much of an issue. Apperently my neibour can hear my tank running on his back porch... I can't hear it in the next room.

this isn't an oilless compressor so I'm worried about being able to filter out all the yuck in the lines.