Advice on DIY skimmer design

[Geoff]

Looks Great!!!!

Extra Style Points with the black!!!

with it 45" tall and powered by a mag 7 you should have no problems with contact time. this should be one heck of an efficient skimmer.

you are more patient than i am. i just glued it up and plugged it in. if it was dry to the touch it was good enough for me.

i was getting worried about you there for a while.

G~

[Reefer Addict]

Thanks Geoff.
Heheh.... it's been pretty darn hot the past few days to do anything else (between 105-110) so I've had some time to do it.
I went ahead and bought a Mag9.5 for the drive pump figuring that it'll give me plenty of legroom. I mainly went that route because I didn't think that I'd have enough flow with a Mag5, and I've seen several reports of people's Mag7's suddenly stopping (or not restarting after power outage).

One setback I've had so far is that right after posting that picture, I heard a large 'thud' and a loud 'crack' and the skimmer had fallen over and cracked off my drain tube...
I reglued it with a heavy dose of epoxy, and this time it's securely leaning into a corner while it cures...
At least I'm glad it did it now rather than after it's hooked up.
I can't wait to fire it up and see how it works.
I'll keep ya posted.

[Geoff]

with a mag 9.5 you are right on the borderline of needing the 3/4" venturi valve. you should still be fine, but the 1/2" may suck all of your flow, but man will you get bubbles.

i won't tell you how many times i have dropped my projects.

G~

[Reefer Addict]

Well, the skimmer failed the wet test with flying colors.
Well, it really isn't that bad, but the ABS closet flange and the 4"-2" reducer leaked like a sieve. Also, the venturi didn't work as planned, but it still functions well as a siphon break.
I figured out a better way to do the venturi anyway, which doesn't require modification to the skimmer (thank goodness). I just ran an 1/8" airline through the plastic prefilter on the Mag9.5, so that it's partially in the impellar housing, and it bubbles like crazy now... whew! (cue Matrix scene of dodging bullets). The beauty of doing it this way is that the impellar also whips up the bubbles so that I get a finer-bubbled foam than with just a straight venturi.
I siliconed the closet and reducer flanges around the seams and the skimmer is now drying again... gotta wait 24 hours for the silicone to cure and then I'll probably give it another test run tomorrow.

On a side note... I filled the skimmer and measured the water volume in it... it holds right around 2.5 gallons when filled to the top.

[Reefer Addict]

Well, I got impatient and figured 'dry enough'...
Got it hooked up and plumbed, and I ran into problems.
The Mag9.5 is waaaay too much pump for a skimmer this size... I probably need at least another 2 feet of height before I can run it wide open... as it is I have it backed off quite a ways... at least I got the legroom I wanted.
The next problem was with the venturi... it was working great in the bucket, but I think there's too much backpressure on the pump for it to draw the air. As it is I'm using an air pump to pressurize the venturi line and then using the venturi valve (a MaxiJet one) to bleed off the excess air until I get a good air/water mixture (when the pump stops chattering from getting too much air).
The good thing is I'm already getting LOTS of foam... way more than the Seaclone (like that's surprising).
I'm going to do some more work on the venturi and then I'll get some pix posted of it plumbed and running.
I also opted not to use acrylic windows on the skimmer and skimmate collector. The water height is visible when the collection cup is removed, and I dunno if I want to see the skimmate in the collector anyway.

I'll post back again tomorrow once I work on it some more and it has a chance to break in.

[Geoff]

i was afraid of that with the mag 9.5. the 3/4 would have been a better choice for that size pump. if you are having draining issues, you can increase the size of the outlet tube.

the fun of DIY.

G~

[Reefer Addict]

I agree, DIY is lots of fun sometimes...

I figure that it's a first generation model, and the parts cost me less than $100, so I'll give it another shot in the future once I see how this one works and where I can make improvements.

Well, I got a shot of it plumbed into the tank and attached it below.

[Reefer Addict]

Here's a shot of the foam production after running about 12 hours give-or-take. It's a nice yucky brown color... the skimmate in the seaclone was always greenish.
I can't wait to see how it performs when fully broken in.

looking good!