Be prepared for some real foam. You could place the venturi ball valve directly above the venturi and use vinyl tubing if you want to rid yourself of the pvc pipe. The NW pump is awesome and quiet.
Nice job.
It looks to me like you are going to end up "re" sucking up a lot of the air bubbles. I think it would run more effeciently if you could figure out how to suck in bubbleless water.
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150 gal Custom Born 5/7/07 w/8 bulb ATI PowerModule for lighting. 50gal & 29gal Sumps. 20gal Fuge w/sunblaze 4 bulb T5 lighting. 30gal Frag Tank w/150w 20k Radium for light. Orca 200 Skimmer.
Patrick, I'll have to keep it in mind. I have a guy from my local reef club who wnats me to build one...if this one works that is.
Chuck, I have fired it up and I have a problem with the bubbles. The Reeflo pump makes an insane amount of super fine bubbles that fill the entire chamber nicely. However it is quite a bit of flow and turbulence seems to be a major issue. At the top near the collection cup it looks like the Bering sea in the middle of a winter storm. The only way so far that I can calm it down is to put a bubble plate just above the output from the needlewheel and put an elbow pointing down. But by doing this the bubbles heads down and even with another bubble plate belowthis (above the output to the sump) it sucks most of the bubbles out and back to the sump.
I think you are right that I could get more production if I was "re-sucking" as you put it. Any suggestions as to how to go about this?
No - you'd get more production if you were doing less "re-sucking". The more air you re-suck, the less new air the pump can suck. I think how others are "helping" the situation is to have the output go into an inside chamber and rise up and out of the chamber. The inlet to the pump is outside and below this chamber. Look at how the Orca is constructed .
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150 gal Custom Born 5/7/07 w/8 bulb ATI PowerModule for lighting. 50gal & 29gal Sumps. 20gal Fuge w/sunblaze 4 bulb T5 lighting. 30gal Frag Tank w/150w 20k Radium for light. Orca 200 Skimmer.
In looking at your picture, I see two possible problems.
1) You want to take the water into the venturi pump as low as possible. You may want to put an L on the intake inside the skimmer, and a short length of tubing to take the intake below the bubble plate.
2) You may have an issue with the amount of water entering and exiting the skimmer. Unless it's enough to keep the bubbles always going up, the venturi pump will tend to suck them in. You might be able to resolve this by reducing the amount of air going into the venturi.
The problem with the top of the bubble column many not be an issue. Once it starts collecting material, it should calm down a bit.
Interesting Dave. I hadnt thought of having the intake of the recirc/air pump draw from down at the same point as where the water exits the skimmer. Easy enough to try without much work.
I think I might have a problem with too much water entering and exiting the skimmer. Currently I have a Mag12 pushing against a total of 6 feet of head (calculated for fittings, etc...) It is throttled back to about half flow but maybe is causing some of my problems. I have a Mag 7 that I can try.
Just let me know, I have a few more months of doing things for free ahead of me. Quite a few people are showing up with wood and I am making a lot of signs right now.
Right now the deal is, buy the material and I will run the machine for free. That will probably end about the time the snow flies and then I will be quite proficient and start charging your first born for machine time.
As soon as I make some changes to this skimmer and work out the last few bugs I will let you know. i definitely would like to have some of the parts machined for the one that I will be selling.
Interesting Dave. I hadnt thought of having the intake of the recirc/air pump draw from down at the same point as where the water exits the skimmer. Easy enough to try without much work.
(snip)
Oh yea - A lot of skimmers have an angled piece that suck the water about 1/2" off the bottom. Good one dave. That is the first thing to try before building a "box" to try and contain the bubbles a bit better.
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150 gal Custom Born 5/7/07 w/8 bulb ATI PowerModule for lighting. 50gal & 29gal Sumps. 20gal Fuge w/sunblaze 4 bulb T5 lighting. 30gal Frag Tank w/150w 20k Radium for light. Orca 200 Skimmer.
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