SRV's 300 gal.

[jnarowe]

Looks kool. I wish you had taken my collection cup! Interesting stone orientation. So is that a gravity-fed Hartford loop going into the bottom? Or would it be better to ask, which way is in and which way is out??

 

[danno14]

Funny! Asking about the orientation of a guys "stones"!

 

[SRV]

Looks kool. I wish you had taken my collection cup! Interesting stone orientation. So is that a gravity-fed Hartford loop going into the bottom? Or would it be better to ask, which way is in and which way is out??

Jon,
If I new what a Hartford loop was I could answer you question????? Looking back I wish I would have taken your collection cup too. The water enters through the horizontal vinyl flex line and exits through the Tee just below that. What you can't see is a gate valve on the outgoing Tee to adjust water level.

Funny! Asking about the orientation of a guys "stones"!

Hmmmmmm?????

 

[krisfal]

This thread needs an updated FTS, looks like its been about a year

Good to "see" you Rick!

 

[jnarowe]

Still have the cup, and a good design for a collection bucket. The lid is cracked, but it works really well. The biggest issue with using a powerful air pump is turning it off when the cup or bucket is full. As you may know, my skimmer exploded because I was using a Weaver-style shut-off which simply put back pressure on the head. Even though you used cast acrylic, it will get stressed unless the air pump is shut down when the cup is full. Ultimately I used a collection bucket with an electrical float switch to signal my controller to shut off the air.

I can't tell from the pictures if you are allowing off-gassing from the cup, as I do see your closed drain valve there. The down-side to allowing free-flow of air is that the skimmer can volcano under certain circumstances. So without a place for skimmate and air to go, or without an electronic shut-off, you can run into trouble. There's no assumption on my part that you don't already know all this, but it is important information for others building DIY skimmers.

That is a sick air manifold dude! :lol:

 

[SRV]

This thread needs an updated FTS, looks like its been about a year

Good to "see" you Rick!

Kris,
You are right!!! I'll see what I can do to correct that problem.

Still have the cup, and a good design for a collection bucket. The lid is cracked, but it works really well. The biggest issue with using a powerful air pump is turning it off when the cup or bucket is full. As you may know, my skimmer exploded because I was using a Weaver-style shut-off which simply put back pressure on the head. Even though you used cast acrylic, it will get stressed unless the air pump is shut down when the cup is full. Ultimately I used a collection bucket with an electrical float switch to signal my controller to shut off the air.

I can't tell from the pictures if you are allowing off-gassing from the cup, as I do see your closed drain valve there. The down-side to allowing free-flow of air is that the skimmer can volcano under certain circumstances. So without a place for skimmate and air to go, or without an electronic shut-off, you can run into trouble. There's no assumption on my part that you don't already know all this, but it is important information for others building DIY skimmers.

That is a sick air manifold dude! :lol:

Jon,
I think we may need to talk before I build the new riser/collection cup. This one didn't work out the way I wanted. What I did was vent the lid to allow the air to escape. There should not be a pressure problem. Is my thinking all wrong???? I am always open for suggestions, so assume away. The valve is to drain the skimmate out of the collection cup. I get approximately 1" of skimmate a day and I drain it everyday or so, so I wasn't planning on a secondary collection bucket. Lets talk.

 

[jnarowe]

Yeah, so the issue with allowing air to vent is that in the event of a volcano, you could drain your tank, or at least your sump, onto your tank room floor. How does this happen? Well, let me tell you!

Let's say you get lazy and don't clean the neck for a couple three months, but along the way, you might tweak the output to adjust skimmate production. (I almost never did this BTW) When you do finally take the time to do a thorough cleaning, you have changed the riser parameters, yet have it throttled back. So you could get a volcano event. Uncontrolled (without some sort of shut-off mechanism), this could drain a significant amount of water from your system, depending on how it is built. Mine could only theoretically drain my sumps, but that was still over 100g or about 8% of system water. Then you have your top-off working overtime, and salinity starts to drop.

It can be a disaster, unless you have safety measures in place. So then you decide to use a collection bucket with a mechanical shut-off, a la Weatherson (I mis-wrote "Weaver" above)...

This is a great and simple solution for most skimmers, providing the back pressure to squelch the head, and keeping your skimmer from overflowing. BUT, it will not work long-term with a sealed air stone skimmer with the kind of power yours has @ 100lt/min. There's just too much back pressure and it will weaken the skimmer over time, causing the great skimmer explosion of 2006.

What's needed? And electronic float switch to signal the air pump to shut down. Upside? I used a 6g collection bucket and could go 2 - 5 days without having to empty it. I could also allow my neck to get full-on nasty with no resulting mishaps:

So the way you have it set up currently is fine regarding back pressure, but there still is the risk of draining a lot of water out in the case of a volcano.

 

[Peppie]

Just thought I would give this a bump. Classified had this system up for sale. Looks like an awesome deal.

I had to look, The gallonage is right, but the dimensions are all wrong for me.