Reef Octopus Pump Upgrade

[mungus]

Here are the picts of the thread wheel. I broke the first set of spokes off with a needle nose pliers and then sewed three layers of dls on to the remaining spokes. This was done to the OTP-3000.

I took an initial reading with the flow meter. It is now pulling a pretty constant 20 SCFH. (9.44 lpm) :shock: That is a huge improvement over what it was pulling with the standard needle wheel. The reaction chamber is now a milky white. This is definitely the best performance improving mod I have ever done.

yesterday i make more test on the pump and i find out as i thought when i put the air pipe crossing the air intake like kent make the pump drop from 25LPM to 22LPM , if you will decide to change it don't cross the air intake make it flat inside .

That sounds good I will do that. How much air do you think the 3.5" neck can handle. I am sure that I can get more out of the pump but I don't want to go to far.

Thanks
Brian

 

[mavgi]

Here are the picts of the thread wheel. I broke the first set of spokes off with a needle nose pliers and then sewed three layers of dls on to the remaining spokes. This was done to the OTP-3000.

I took an initial reading with the flow meter. It is now pulling a pretty constant 20 SCFH. (9.44 lpm) :shock: That is a huge improvement over what it was pulling with the standard needle wheel. The reaction chamber is now a milky white. This is definitely the best performance improving mod I have ever done.



That sounds good I will do that. How much air do you think the 3.5" neck can handle. I am sure that I can get more out of the pump but I don't want to go to far.

Thanks
Brian

Hi Brian

i pull on my skimmer 6" high 4.5" diameter neck 25LPM without any problem it's also 30" high skimmer . i beleive you can pull more 2-3LPM with no problem , i am not sure it's depend on the impeller to but after the mod and one or more 2 day you can get between 12-13LPM

best regards
michael

 

[Scooterman]

That sounds like that mod is wouking out well, congrats!

 

[mavgi]

That sounds like that mod is wouking out well, congrats!

IMO there is no any pin wheel impeller that can perform like the mesh wheel

you can see my collection cup on my 2 skimmer this is less then a day of skimming i never see any skimmer that can pull like that with pin wheel.

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[mungus]

That sounds like that mod is wouking out well, congrats!

Thanks man!! It is working out really well!!

IMO there is no any pin wheel impeller that can perform like the mesh wheel

I would have to agree when I fired this thing up it was like a new machine the amount of air and the size of the bubbles was fantastic.

Do you think it would benefit me more to replace the tiny plumbing on the output of the pump or make a new venturi?

Brian

 

[mavgi]

Thanks man!! It is working out really well!!




I would have to agree when I fired this thing up it was like a new machine the amount of air and the size of the bubbles was fantastic.

Do you think it would benefit me more to replace the tiny plumbing on the output of the pump or make a new venturi?

Brian

i replace my plumbing on the output , i cut it off and increase the hole i put instead the same fitting as the one we have on the flow meter. if the venturi can go out you can try one before you cahnge the original one .

if you can post picture of yor venturi i want to see how it's look inside.

 

[mungus]

Michael here is a picture of the venturi I got from Roland.

It takes a 90 degree turn inside the unit. I would think that would reduce the air intake a bit. That little hole is where it is drawing air in from.

Brian

 

[mavgi]

Michael here is a picture of the venturi I got from Roland.

It takes a 90 degree turn inside the unit. I would think that would reduce the air intake a bit. That little hole is where it is drawing air in from.

Brian

i do not think the 90 degree will reduce the air (and if yes it will be very low) i am sure with biger hole you will pull more air , try to make other one bigger and it will reduce the noise that come from the pipe to , make it direct (straight to the intake ) do not make it close to the cover and try to keep the same diameter inside (if it's will be bigger the pump will push more water to the skimmer body)
the mesh creat a lot of noise on the air pipe and bigger pipe will make it more silence to and you will see different on the LPM reading to.

 

[Skimmy]

lets see some action shots mungus!

i agree with magvi, this is singularly the best mod for any needle wheel pump.
and incase people didnt know, you can get the enkamat here...


http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/4323/cid/1278

i would like to see the difference in numbers between the enkamat and the blue 3m "synthetic steel wool pad", magvi, have you tested both?

 

[mavgi]

lets see some action shots mungus!

i agree with magvi, this is singularly the best mod for any needle wheel pump.
and incase people didnt know, you can get the enkamat here...


http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/4323/cid/1278

i would like to see the difference in numbers between the enkamat and the blue 3m "synthetic steel wool pad", magvi, have you tested both?

the 3m fall a part and IMO it's to thick and increase the watt pump to much .


the enkmate it's stiff and keep for long time .

you can see short video how it's build foam in my ER skimmer :

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[Skimmy]

the 3m fall a part and IMO it's to thick and increase the watt pump to much .

very good to know!! i'll be avoiding it then.

are you using the .50 enkamat or the .25 enkamat?
i assume it's the .50

love all your cool threadwheel foam vids, continue to spread them accross the internet..lol

and btw, have you mesh or gg modded a maxijet impellar?? would love to see pics if so

 

[mavgi]

very good to know!! i'll be avoiding it then.

are you using the .50 enkamat or the .25 enkamat?
i assume it's the .50

love all your cool threadwheel foam vids, continue to spread them accross the internet..lol

and btw, have you mesh or gg modded a maxijet impellar?? would love to see pics if so

it's the .25 Pf4 i have some more from this stuff and i give almost all the member in RC , if you want to send me PM.

there is mod on maxi jet (he did it with zip ties and i suggest to do it with fish line wire on the MJ impeller)

you can see picture here :

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[mungus]

I will try to get some shots up tomorrow. I got a pen drive for Christmas so it should be a lot easier posting picts. I won't have to smuggle my card reader and card into work. :lol: It really sucks not having Internet at home. It is still not performing the way it should. Maybe I am not getting enough of the skimmable nutrients into the skimmer It definitely has enough air now that I should be seeing better results. I will get pictures of the whole setup in case there is something stupid that I am overlooking.

Thanks
Brian

 

[Skimmy]

thanks for those pics magvi
that little maxijet seems like it rocks looking at that little water pitcher!
is there a pic of the venturi?

dont forget to post your pics too mungus!! sorry for the highjack

 

[Scooterman]

man when I get caught up after the holidays I'll need to get help in souping up my skimmer, this looks awesome!

 

[davidabrown66]

did you try any of the mods for the octopus first??
i think you would get better performance from modding your current pump/plumbing.
but if you do get those gen x pumps from scooty then spend $50 and get a real euroreef needle wheel impellar for it, and mabye even spring for the euroreef venturi. thats what i was going to do
here's the link to the octopus skimmer mods, and a link to where you would buy the nw for the gen-x 4100 from euroreef.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=898776


http://commerce2.i2net.com/able5stores/stores/33/product1.aspx?SID=33&Product_ID=505&Category_ID=627

and as far as your plumbing is concerned i would most likely leave the existing metric unions on the skimmer body and then salvage the other half of the unions from the pump plumbing then attemp to couple them to the new pump(either via dremel or heating and streching your plumbing parts to fit the metric). you may run into problems with differences in pump height and size though. also, i would avoid trying to reconnect the pump deltec style, that acrylic wont take it unless you do a plastic band around the skimmer body where the pump connects to it, like h&s. it's chinese acrylic, your much better off resting the pump on the bottom plate to remove the stress from the skimmer body.

Thanks Mark for the links, and it was good talking with you last weekend about the Octopus Mods at BR.

I've been rummaging through the old posts to find ideas, and this one helped a lot. I've just ordered the Gen-x 4100, and the euroreef nw, volute and venturi for it. I've also ordered some metric to standard fittings from Customaquatics with some spears part #'s, so between the spare parts I have here and what's coming in I can mount the gen-x and get this thing to perform.

 

[mungus]

Post some pictures when you get it up and running. I would love to see them. You will be happy you got rid of the RO pump. I haven't put the genx 4100 on it yet but I will be in the future. The seal on the RO pump is junk. I have had mine flood the basement on three occasions now. The skimmer was performing wonderfully. Now it is in my sump and its back to skimming next to nothing.

Brian

 

[davidabrown66]

Post some pictures when you get it up and running. I would love to see them. You will be happy you got rid of the RO pump. I haven't put the genx 4100 on it yet but I will be in the future. The seal on the RO pump is junk. I have had mine flood the basement on three occasions now. The skimmer was performing wonderfully. Now it is in my sump and its back to skimming next to nothing.

Brian

Good to know mungus.

It was your posting, skimmerwhisperer, and hahnmeister that helped me find this option. I think it's an interesting one, that no one has done yet, only talked about so thanks you guys, and I'll post some pics in a couple of weeks. The parts from Spears takes a couple of weeks to have ordered and to drop ship.

 

[davidabrown66]

Last night I started playing around with a propane torch and heated up the threads on a standard 1 1/4 female threaded coupler (ever made marshmellows? :shock, and to my delight I was able to thread it on to a spare venturi I had laying around which as you may know is the same threads that come on one of the skimmer unions. I let it cool for about 5 minutes, and I was able to unscrew and thread back on again!

My plan now is to buy a 1 1/4 union that I can do the same with for both male and female parts in preparation for my new gen-x. I'm tempted to try this mod on my OTP-3000 as well using 3/4" and 1" couplers, but it means doing the same thing on the pump side. If I can do that, then the trick will be lining up the plumbing for both input/output to the pump, but the good news is that I could start messing around with my own venturi going forward as another mod in tandem with swapping out the OTP.

 

[davidabrown66]

I received the SP4 venturi/volute and the nw, but I thought the volute was going to be able to use 1" plumbing, but it's just over 1" OD, and to attach plumbing, I either have to insert 3/4 pvc or grind down a 1" SLP coupler. It looks like the better option of course is to grind down a 1" coupler so the plastic piece on the input to the volute will slide into one end of a the coupler. Just not sure how others have attached these.

Also, I've done the mesh many times on the OTP-3000, but this is a different NW, and not sure if I need to cut down some pins or not? Does anyone have a link to a post on how to do this the right way?