DIY skimmer

[thestrminmormon]

Ok im planning on making a skimmer because the ebay ones are...good for nothing...my plan is to have a recirculating skimmer but in 2 shorter towers rather than just one



Heres the plan...I am going to have a maxi-jet 1200 feed water to the 2 towers for the display. The water will feed into the towers and the quiet one 3000 with circulate, drawing water from the skimmers and not the sump.

What method should I use to asperate the water coming from the quiet one? The venturi is out the door so maybe a needlewheel mod or another method?

My question is would a 4" diameter tube(2' tall) be better than a 6" diameter tube(1.5' tall)?

Both will reduce down to 2" in the collection cup area and then widen out to the main body width.

Any advise would be very much appreciated.

[Loverotties]

Well the 4 inch is has less volume,but if you have one constant air then you would get more out of the 4" because of being smaller.

[yardboy]

Have you priced the fittings for a 6" ? Reducers are expensive and not easy to find.

I'm assuming you're using the Quiet One 3000 for the air injection? I guess a venturi is "out the door" because it wouldn't have enough ass to push water through two venturi's? A needlewheel is not much different in that it still has a restriction that pulls air into the line (just before the pump instead of after) which wouldn't work with the 3000 either. An airstone seems to be the only option if you have the limitations of the 3000 and using two towers but then if you use an airstone you don't really need the recirc pump either.

[Doug1]

That seems a rather roundabout way to get to the desired result. seems that feedwater directly into the skimmer then recirculated is going to be less efficient than forcefully injecting water into the skimmer reaction chamber and introducing air into through a venturi, Beckett, or eductor. That methodology seems to be the favored for high volume skimmers.
THe 75 gph feeding into your skimmer would be good for an airstone powered counter current type, but with a 4" body you would need several airwoods and a serious airpump to drive them

[Geoff]

i agree with Doug here. why do you want two towers? you will have two collection cups to clean. both skimmers will be circulating at the same speed so it will not be able to trap any more organic material. the slower the water the better. it makes more sense to just a triple or quad pass protein skimmer. this allows the water to slow down a lot more, which allows more proteins to be trapped.

what makes skimmers more efficient is their ability to trap the smallest of proteins. to do this a very slow protein skimmer exit velocity is needed. the slower the water flow the easier it is for the smallest of bubbles to float to the surface to be removed by the foam.

HTH,

G~