The turboflaater is Ventrui with a Needle wheel pump I believe.

Ok well lets have an idea to modify the one i have and pump i have.

Ok if I do this how will i stop the bubbles from going out the output?

What pump are you running, are you still trying this on a mag18?

I run a mag18 on my PM-1 bullet skimmer and it's a good combo. On my SPS tank (which is fed somewhat heavily) I pull out 2l of black-coffee consistency skimmate per week.

The PM-1 is a considerably smaller skimmer than what you're trying to run here.

I'm sorry but I think you need to make a decision, that skimmer has to go much much smaller, or you need a much much bigger pump. If you look at any of the larger beckett style skimmers, the usual recommendation is to go with at LEAST an Iwaki 70 or two Iwaki 70's, or an Iwaki 100. If you look at the specs for these pumps you are going to realize that this is a very expensive proposition. They use a lot of juice out of the wall.

If it was me, and this is just my opinion, but I'd step up to a Mak4 pump, and make the skimmer reaction chamber and injection tower no more than, say, 24" to 28" tall. Anything more than that and you are going to require multiple injectors and a stronger pump.

Ok well before i cut down even further or upgrade to a mak 4 ill try releaving the pressure. Ive removed the 90 degree turns and put in some baffles i guess ill test that out then maybe go for a mak pump. How would i go about attaching a mak pump with no wholes in the sump.

If it was me I'd just pop a hole in the sump wall, but if you'd prefer not to do that, you could build an "up and over" thing with PVC. Just put in a T somewhere, with a union to a capped pipe, so that you can pour water into the pipe for priming.

You'd have to do a U-tube over the edge of the tank into your pump.

Dang! Tony's too fast!

Can you add a needle wheel to that Mag 18 you have??

Dave

relieving pressure
 

no matter what turns you take out will not negate the water pressure in the chamber. if you want an idea to what you have setup, then cut your main chamber down to 6-8 inches high so its similar to Delphinus's bullet 1. a mag 18 is not even pressure rated so its only moving water through the beckett; it should be pushing water through the beckett to create bubbles. in comparison, you are trying to tow a tow truck with a Chevy Sprint - the tow truck will move .... very slowly and the Chevy Sprint is not going to be sprinting anywhere fast. You may even wear down your impeller on your mag 18 if there is too much back pressure on your mag.

Just like you've stated in the topic of this trend, a mag 18 is not big enough for the monster skimmer. If you want to keep the mag 18 and you want a skimmer, take out the monster.

Ok well ill test my new system with my mag 18, if it doesnt work i will upgrade to a mak 4. Now with this said will a mak 4 be a good enough pump. The only thing chin-lee is that its making tons of good bubbles there just not making it around to the reaction tube.

I'll save you the trouble. No. A MAK 4 isn't going to run that skimmer. My skimmer was smaller than yours and the MAK 4 was just enough. The Iwaki 7 I tried was much better, and the minimum you'd get away with.
For a new approach to this, maybe try cutting the tube down to less than 18". Then the MAg 18 will work, and you'll still hae more skimme than you need.

mak5
 

dude
if u'r going to stay with that size of skimmer, don't waste your money with mak4. go straight to mak5/iwaki70 (or even iwaki100.) they all take up lots of $$ to buy and lots of $$ in electricity
looking at your pics, i don't consider that "tons" of bubbles. in my skimmer, the bubbles are so thick its like milk and you cannot see through to the other side. In fact it doesn't even look like water in the chamber. take a look at the chamber of my skimmer:
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/dat...9_3919-med.JPG

Mine's using an iwaki70 now with the same results. my skimmer stands 48" tall total including the box so chamber is about 20 inches high and the top tube and collection cup is about 20 inches as well.
hth

Well i dont have 400 dollers to spend on a mak 5 of equivalent, i know canadian man has a skimmer similiar in size to mine and is using a mak 4 with good results. When i say lots of bubbles i mean in the down pipe.

If youve removed the 90`s that are in the base of the skimmer, try it first before you cut anything down.

The bubbles are going to take the easiest way....and right now that is going straight back up the injection tower...that is why it spits too.

The size of the reaction tube right now has nothing to do with the problem... if you cut that tube down, it will be a smaller tube, still with no bubbles in it.

It doesnt matter what the height of the reaction tube is...you can place the water at any height with a valve on the output of the skimmer.

dont worry about bubbles in the sump right now, baffles and buckets and bags can be used for that, atleast the majority can just rise up the reaction tube instead of getting stuck in the injection tower.

Marc.

Canadian Man's skimmer reaction chamber is no more than 26" tall.

How do I know this? I bought the acrylic tube that it's made of! I have the other 26" and it was a 52" off cut. :razz:

Like I said, I know it's kinda sucky to hear this, but, what I would do is go to the Mak4, AND cut the skimmer in half. I know it's not quite what you want to hear, but another thing to consider: you have to get into the skimmer once per week to clean it. How can you even reach down into it if it's 48" tall?

Look on the bright side, you could probably sell the offcuts.

Im not sure what ive said in the past but as of this moment the actull reaction chamber is just above 30" tall on mine. Im going to test the mag 18 tommorow. But if that doesnt work im going to get a mak 4.

I personally don't think you really need that huge of a pump to drive a beckett. It all depends on the design... Let me explain.

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/dat...mmer_small.jpg

The reaction chamber in my skimmer is about 38" of 6" diameter tube.
The total height of my skimmer is 52" tall. I am only running a T3 (Custom Sea Life) pump which is pressure rated 800gph at 0'. However, by beckett shoots straight down into the reaction chamber with no elbows. I think this makes a huge difference. I don't know if you really have to go with a bigger pump.

Des

PS that skimmate is only 8 hours worth in the cup

Dez, he either has to make a modification, or he has to upgrade his pump if he doesn't want to touch the skimmer itself. I'm sure a swimming pool pump would run that skimmer just fine as-is. If it was me, I'd be looking at both pump and design: a mag18 draws 145W and a Mak4 draws 110W, so the Mak4 is cheaper to run, AND I think will perform a little better on a larger beckett skimmer (although it is not going to solve the problem with the skimmer as it is now). So I stand by my comments, although, for sure, it's not the complete solution.

Sean, I think one possible key thing to focus on here is the length of the injector assembly. If you really want to avoid shortening the reaction chamber any further then look at least at shortening that (should your next run of it, without the 90 degree bends in the bottom, turns out to not fix it). I know that your original idea was to increase contact time but it seems to me that you're now faced with a "too long" contact time? Dez's skimmer shoots water right into the reaction chamber, but also significant, I think, is that this means his injection tube ends up being shorter.

Just a question though, how long is the feed pipe from the pump to the injector? What diameter pipe is it (it looks like 1")? Is there anything that could be restricting the pump at all. How old is it? If it's second-hand .. what shape is the impeller in? You'd be surprised at how little of a restriction on the pump (or a particle of crud in the becket itself) can adversely impact foam production.

The pump is practicly new, used for maybe a week or so. Its on inch pipe then 3/4".

Ahhh .. well for one get rid of the 3/4", redo it in at least 1". Also try to avoid excessive 90 bends, if at all possible. Probably the best option is to go with 1" flex PVC, if not, then use 2 45's instead of a single 90 (and so on).

You wouldn't believe the difference switching from 3/4" to 1" made for me. Also I was using a short length of that ribbed 1" pond lining. I don't have any stats to back me up but I'm convinced that the ribbing puts too much friction into the equation, I would think that the flow through 1" ribbed pond tubing is equivalent to 3/4" tubing without.

I don't have the equations handy but flow through a cylinder increases exponentially with increases in diameter. E.g., comparing a 1" cylinder to a 2" cylinder, the total flow is 4x as much in the 2" as the 1", despite the diameter only being 2x as much. I guess my point is, don't discount the pipe diameter, it's significant.

Ok but i will have to reduce since the becket only fits 3/4". Is this correct?

Well, just to come at this from a different angle IMO the down tube is too large - I'm pretty sure i saw somewhere it is 2.5"

I have a chart somewhere (can't place it at the moment) but the rule of thumb from my diving days is that the *smallest* visible bubbles rise at about 1 foot per second. So if you look at a flow vs velocity chart on 2.5" pipe you need about 18gpm for a 1FPS velocity (round it out to 20gpm for a nice number) Thats 20gpm just to keep the *smallest* bubbles static in a column of water. So realistically you're going to need 30-40gpm to blow everything down and through - which you're not going to get through a 3/4" injector..... So you'd need multiple injectors..... And bigger piping...

I think I saw the skimmer was 5' tall. So if you add that head to the head loss across the injectors and friction loss, I'd guess you're around 15' of head (or probably more). That's a pretty skookum (read inefficient & noisy or expensive) pump.

2" @ 1FPS = 12gpm
1.5" @ 1FPS = 8gpm

Anyways, just my thoughts to chew on for what they are worth.

Jim

you forgot about this part, like I suggested in the earlier thread and this one go to a 1" tube for your Becket, this will increase the water velocity and help push them bubbles out.

Steve

Ok well after i test this design, maybe ill try makeing the down pipe smaller but not sure how i will go about this.

how is your 2.5" pipe atached to the box?

Steve

Its been attached with the chemical stuff the bonds the acrylic togeth so it will be a tough process to get it apart, but who well the testing has been moved till tommoroow ill let everyone know how it went.!!!

Fun stuff, huh Sean?!? :biggrin:

woo-hoo, havin fun NOW... :mrgreen:

well a couple ways to do it, you could use a dremmel and cut it flush with the box. then get a 1.5" bulkhead and put that in the hole (as it is almost the right size) and use a 1.5" male to 1" female bushing in it to alow for you to rig it up using a 1" pipe.

Steve

Yeah stircrazy thats what i was thinking but i dont have a dremal, maybe someone will lend me one :biggrin:

PS oh im havin loads of fun now :evil:

Ok well ive tested out the skimmer without the 90 degree bends and im getting less bubbles then before in the reaaction chamber, so now im open to options that will allow me to use what i got without to much modification. Im open to a different type of skimmer and everything. maybe a venturi?

Sean, I know I'm going off the deep end here but have you taken apart the becket? Not sure even if this has been suggested yet.(wow long post) Anyways I made the mistake once after doing a mod to a skimmer and not cleaning out the acrylic chips. They all end up in the becket. I worked for days trying to figure out why my skimmer was working worse then before the mods. Low and behold the becket was full of all the chips. Oh and yes I'm embarrassed to share this on the board. :redface:

The beckett has been taken apart numerous times, i just cant get it to work im so sick of it now i just want a skimmer that will work.

:razz: Mine works! Bring me some money and your old skimmer and I'll trade ya. :lol:

Bah, get a Euro....you would have been skimming long ago... :razz: :lol:

Ok how about a pic as it is now and go over what you have done and we will see if we can get this going. Oh for your becket holder what size air hole do you have drilled in it?

Steve

Yeah, I think Steve is onto something,


I tried something on another skimmer to see, it too had an elbow at the bottom... if too much air was introduced to the injector, the bubbles would all stay in the injection portion of the column.

Do you have a means of adjustment on the air introduced to the beckett ?

Well these is quite a bit of air getting in so maybe thats my problem, theres nothing really restricting how much air is entering the beckett, so do you think if i restrict the air it might improve?

What is the height of your reaction chamber and the height of the Beckett down pipe right now? Also, did you change the beckett tube size to 1"? Can we get a picture to see how its running?

Its about 30", its look the same as in the last picture but now NO bubbles are making it into the reaction chamber,

Beckett upside down?