My New Toy
 

This is my new bubble king 300 Ext.

I'm in Love and I haven't even set it up yet. The only question is where is my wife going to sleep

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...0891Medium.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...0890Medium.jpg

and one my with a test kit box for scale.
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...0893Medium.jpg

Now I just have to re-plumb my entire system LOL

Oh BTW Thanks Mike @ Hidden Reef for the tremendous help as usual

Dayyyyyum! *drool*

Wow those things are bigger than I thought, theres never anything there for reference and I always assumed they were rather compact. I guess they don't call them the "King" for nothin' :wink:

Congrats! :mrgreen: Can't wait to see it in action!

If one could ever call a skimmer "sexy" that is the one!

I think its all the hot red on it :wink:

Hey I just recieved mine form Mike @ HR aswell. These units are incredible. The craftsmanship is second to none. Just cant wait to get our basement fish room started.

nice........ lets see it in action!

Ya one day I'll own a real skimmer to, one day.

:mrgreen:

Wow, nice skimmer Jason. Only us aquarists could appreciate looking at great skimmers. :smile: Like a fine wine. :smile:

Some one say wine. I bring my own glass.

Well I'm still sourceing Metric PVC. I found some in Ontario so as soon as I order it I'll post pics

J

Metric PVC? :neutral:

Can't wait to see what you do with this :)

ya the PVC tubeing
All the Fittings in this Gen BK's are Metric

j

good job jason. i've been seriously contemplating upgrading to a BK. what is you model rated for? has anyone heard them running. my H&S is quiet but it is still the loudest part of the system and if the BK's are quieter then it is a good selling pitch for the wife :lol:

Jason I can't speak , man that piece of equipment I would say costed you in the mid 6k since Stepane sells them there.. hold on I have to wipe my mouth...:mrgreen:


KEWL

Wow your luckey

Less than 6k for sure nowadays.

If only I could spend 6K on a skimmer. thank the lord they have come down in price

J

It's rated for 317G to 793G but that is from a retailers site not Royal. I have yet to fire it up but it does have a air silencer on it

J

Hi Jason

I can not wait to see that puppy in action. If hooked up to the GVRD water system we would probably have cleaner water all the way out here in Cloverdale.

Tom R

Jason, Have you contacted Hidden Reef about the PVC piece, just ask for Marc and he should be able to do something for you instead of having to do an order from ontario.

Yeah Jason I can't wait to get this all setup and running too. All the threads I have ever read on these all have amazing reviews. And it's nice that the price finally came down to something reasonable aswell.

If anybody needs one contact HR and he will hook you up!

I made an adaptor for the metric PVC on my H&S skimmer to our standard PVC. Just take a piece of PVC pipe slightly larger than the metric size and heat it to 200 degrees in the oven. While it's still hot push it into the metric fitting. When it cools you have an adaptor.

Hey Seanoman,
I actually ordered the metric fittings from Ontario. Call me a loon but I like the idea of metric to metric. Of course I paid a lot more for a solution but....

Loon

Hey sounds good Jason, just thought I would let you know so that you knew that there was another option. But yeah post some pics when you get it all setup I would love to see it running.

I wont have mine up for about a month or two, because I am just starting my tank build next week. But I am going to be doing a tank journal, so I will have lots of pics there.

As far as I know, we are the first in Canada to have received these units, so as much info that we can post will help others aswell.

Good luck with the setup!!

I know Ruth has had one or two now for some time. but don't know of anyone else. I'll try and get it up and running next week end. I opted for the cheapest shipping of the metric bits. so I'm not getting them until next week.
I have a lot of other tank projects under way.
1) new floor in the tank room
2) redo all the electrical
3) vent the entire fish room
all are under way and I havn't even got the honney do list for this week end yet

J

Uh oh you better be on your best behaviour, so that the list doesn't continue to get bigger and bigger.

Seanoman, So what are you building How big?

J

I am building a 6'long 30"deep and 24" tall which I believe is around 220 gallon. It's going to be an in wall setup in our basement which will be viewable from two sides. It will have it's own fish room behind it that will house all the equipment and other goodies.

But yeah I am hoping to start the construction next week and get things going. Then Marc aka Superfudge has been very generous in offering some help with ideas and such, which we are very fortunate for because the guy is a master when it comes to DIY.

that sound a lot like mine. Same 2 sided view with the fishroom in the back. If you ever want to swing by and learn from all my mistakes :) let me know. Maybe you could drag Marc this way and check it out.

Check out my link to my tank build thread

J

Yeah that sounds great we'll have to take you up on your offer one of these days. Just looked at your tank through your link and it looks very impressive. You've done a very nice job.

Can't wait to see what the skimmer will do to the tank though.

So ... hooked it up yet? Or still waiting on the metric PVC parts?

Man, that sounds sort of like a nuisance if you can't plumb it in without mail ordering pipe from somewhere :neutral:

If not setup yet, maybe you can satisfy some of my curiousity nonetheless: How are you hooking it up? i.e. on the floor next to the sump? Does it have to sit higher than the sump water level? What kind of feed pump are you using?

hey Tony,
Not hooked up yet. I was hoping for the PVC today but I'm sure the long week end added a couple of days to the shipping.
It's my own anal retentiveness that is causeing the delay. There are many easy solutions using imperial measurement PVC, but I like the idea of correctly fitting pieces.
I heard from Royal Executive that the next version of BK headed to North America will be all imperial fittings.

I have built a self unit above my sump and will put the skimmer on it. I'm using a MAG 5 for a feed pump. It's an odd design as the MAG feeds directly into the Dragon pump. I guess the feed pump is really only to ensure water gets to the skimmer. In hind sight I could have just gone with an internal BK. But this will look cooler ;)
Water level isn't really a factor with the external it just has a 600GPH max feed restriction.

That reminds me I'm going to call the PVC people

J

Jason,

Can you clarify on the External BK as I am thinking of adding one.

You need a pump to feed the skimmer pump? How exactly does that work? Seems kind of silly unless I misunderstand.


Keith

I assumed that BK's are recirc style skimmers when I asked how it's being fed.

Traditionally, skimmer pumps are both the driver behind drawing water into the skimmer and the driver behind pumping air and shredding the air bubbles inside of the skimmer.

A recirculating skimmer uses the pump to simply do the air part - ie. the pump intake draws water from the skimmer body itself. This theoretically increases contact time. But it means that the skimmer itself needs to be fed water by some other means - either gravity or separate feed pump.

Yes you need a pump to feed the skimmer. The idea is the skimmer can sit anywhere. NOT in the sump. so in theory you could have it plumbed across the room or on a self away from the sump. This is why you need a pump. you need to get the water to the skimmer. Bubble king also makes the more popular in sump skimmer in the same capacities as the external.

In my pictures you can see a red pipe coming off the red dragon pump. this is the input of the skimmer. I will be plumbing a MAG 5 to this intake pipe

I hope I answered your question. if not i can clarify further

J

No, that was a very clear reply. Thanks.

Does the skimmer need a pump rated at a certain GPH? Is there any way to adjust the imcoming flow? I cannot see it in your pics.

Thanks for helping me out.

that's the odd part Tony. As I see it. The feed pump feeds directly into the needle wheel Pump.(as I described in the above post). the key to BK design is the defusion plate and the high quality materials. In a in-sump version there is only 1 pump. So this is not a recerc.
Not to send people to another forum. But the Zeovit forum has an entire thread dedicated to BK and a lot of photos of them working
if interested go HERE


J


J

the BK 300 external recommendations are between 300 and 600 GPH. going over is said to cause turbulence in the reaction chamber and this lowers efficiency. regulating incoming flow would have to be done by a ball valve not supplied

J

The feed line (so to speak) attaching into the plumbing versus attaching into the skimmer doesn't make an ultimate difference though - there is a feed line controlled externally (other pump or whatever), and the skimmer pump itself draws water from the T fitting (where the feedline comes in). I assumed that the line going into the white bottom tray was drawing water from the skimmer body. If it isn't - what is that line used for?

The insump model is basically the same but instead of a T, the pump intake is open to the water. So it draws water from the sump directly. So yes, the internal version looks to be a non-recirculating model, but the external model I thought was still a recirculating design.

Which is immaterial, I asked a question (what pump are you feeding the pump with) and you answered (Mag 5). :biggrin: I just thought I'd try to help answer Andrew's question. Recirculation in a skimmer is, I've found, not as beneficial as one might think. Plus, there is a fair amount of unknowns (IMO) behind optimal feed rates. However, it does still make sense in certain scenarios, such as the external versions of skimmers as well as multi pump skimmers. So, anyhow, there ya go. ;)

Thanks. That is kind of a turn off on the external for me. I hate guessing the most efficient GPH on the feed pump.

If the defusion plate and the high quality materials are the only thing that sets BK apart, what is the difference between this and say an ATI or other defusion plate type skimmer.

Good parts only go so far I would think. Like with the longevity of the skimmer.

Thanks for your thoughts.