needle wheel pumps
 

ok, I am bulding a massive skimmer and instead of going with a dual beckett or venturi I have decided to go with dual needle wheel pumps. Problem is I have no experiance with them so I don't know what size to buy.

the skimmer its self is a 9" dia tube on a box about 40" tall (tube is 30" tall and box is 10ish) so there is a tone of volume to it. I was looking at the sedera 9000 but I am not sure if the skimmer size warents two of these.

the two pumos are going to be set up as a recirculating system and I will have a different pump to feed the water to the skimmer.

should I use two 9000's or should I go down a size? or maybe go with a different pump, like the ones the octopus uses at 1/2 the price.

Steve

Sedras have a few problems, most notable the magnet casing swells up and after a couple of years the impeller tends to bind and you have to replace the impeller. In addition Sedras are noisy.

Seems like the latest king of the needlewheel pump hill is currently the Askoll pump which comes with the new Octopus/MSX Extreme skimmers. It is considered so because it is what a Red Dragon pump on a Bubble King starts out its life as before Klaus adds the custom volute and various titantium bits.

It's a shame that you bring up the question now since C&C Marine of Quebec (who originally designed the new Octo Extreme skimmers before a falling out with Coralvue) was selling turn key Askoll skimmer pumps complete with volute and needlewheel on their website. A shame because they recently went out of business.

I know people have been using Eheim 1262s as DIY needlewheel pumps with good success.

Here's BeanAnimal's page on a DIY needlewheel with an Oceanrunner pump although now it appears he will be switching to an Eheim:
http://www.beananimal.com/projects/6...n-skimmer.aspx

If you look on RC's DIY forum there was a massive thread on Hahnmeister's attempts to recreate a Red Dragon from a Hagen Laguna pond pump (which also has the Askoll pump its heart).

I'm running a Warner Marine RX200 prototype skimmer right now with a Sedra 9000HO pump. It's very quiet. The volute looks like a custom one and the discharge has been hand ported.