DIY Skimmer Suggestions

[Jimbo]

Here's the a pick of the skimmer in operation. I'm pretty happy with the skimmate it produces, pretty awesome. Still looking to possibly getting a bigger base and cutting the current cylinder in half, but can't find a 8" to 4" adapter. But my brain was working overtime on it yesterday

Some things that I found out doing this.

1.Put your drill on reverse it drills the holes much smoother with acrylic
2. Put soap on your tap if you tap your holes, makes it much easier.
3. If you get a genx pump use the supplied fitting for the output hole and don't overtighten it, I cracked mine twice with a tapered pvc adapter. I removed the supplied rubber oring and put it at the bottom of the screw in hole and it did not matter much about the crack, but super glued it anyway.
4. You can use teflon tape on pvc but it is sometimes hit and miss whether it will leak or not.

[Geoff]

no doubt about the teflon tape and threaed fittings. i have a couple that are barely leaking that i have to fix.

G~

[Jimbo]

I've been thinking LOL, now the problem with my skimmer running full blast is turbulance. Now if somehow I could reduce the turbulance in the top half of the skimmer yet still allow the bubbles to rise to the top it would function great. Well it is functioning pretty well now just want to use the full 1000gph of the pump.

I have a couple of ideas, insert a riser tube from the top to about the middle, but it seems that air would get trapped at the top on the sides of the riser if the pump was not strong enough to turn over the water in these areas, but this would be simple to test.

Another idea would be to put in some sort of baffle system. Thought of cutting up a coke bottle or a funnel and inserting just above the water and air inlet.

Any other ideas?

[Jimbo]

Here's a new pic, I have the pump running flat out at 1000gph. I put a 90 degree connector on the output inside the skimmer to direct flow towards the bottom. Although it skims good I still believe there is way to much turbulance. My water intake is about 150gph.

I calculated the volume of water that my skimmer holds 168cu

So if I wanted to double that I would need 336cu. I was thinking of cutting the 3" acrylic skimmer I have in half and using 4" for the bottom portion. so half my skimmer would be 84cu. So the volume of the 4" portion would need to be 252cu inches. Here's where some algebra comes in.

pi(r^2)*length=252cu So
252/pi(r^2)=length
252/3.12(2^2)= 20.2 inches