diy beckett skimmer

[Dez]

This is a skimmer that I made quite a while ago. I just thought that I'd post it and share.

I've never seen this design anywhere. It's just a space saving design where the beckett is going through the collection cup and down the middle of the skimmer...

works great. comments appreciated

[Corey]

Looks incredible, I made a DIY venturi skimmer, works ok but not as good as yours looks, any specs, I would love to build one for myself.

[Dez]

This was one of the first skimmers I've made. It's about 30 inches tall and done with 6 inch tubing. That's a 2" gate valve believe it or not, I got it free from somewhere. That's running on a SEn 900 pump which I believe only 900 gallon per hour pump not pressure rated. The beckett nozzle is a Wetlands beckett that Canadian Tire had, it was 14.99. I've made about 65-70 skimmers since then. I have now gone away from a lot of flanges for ease of cleaning etc..
des

[Murminator]

Originally Posted by Dez

I've made about 65-70 skimmers

[Buccaneer]

Hey Dez ... I had to put a drain back to the sump in the bottom of my Beckett housing because the Beckett would " spit " water ever so often and it would fill up the housing with water and shut down the Beckett because it could not draw any air. Have you had this problem and if so did you do something similar to fix it ?

[Dez]

I have never had a beckett fill up with water on me. Hmmm...that seems really strange. I'm running a 51" tall beckett now and have never had a problem. My beckett is external now and I didn't even glue my fittings.. That seems strange, anybody else have Buck-a-neer's same problem?

des

[Canadian Man]

I have the problem only when there's a snail stuck in the beckett.

Mine does fill with water but it does not effect the skimmer.

[JohnM99]

Hi Dez,
Looks like you have a huge amount of experience with skimmers. Can I ask a question - almost all the DIY skimmers I have seen are Venturi or Beckett - why no needle wheel designs? Are they harder to make?
Thanks
John

[Dez]

I think mostly people don't do needle wheels because of ease maybe. Then you have to take a bioball apart (at least that's what most people use) and then rig it up. Plus then you are only limited to one pump (chances are you modified the impeller of the pump you were going to use...and what if it doesn't work?) Impellers aren't cheap. Here is a picture of a large spray injection skimmer I made.... There is no beckett or venturi....very simple design actually... and works well..



Hope this helps, I don't know if my reply was correct because I've never bothered with needle wheel skimmers. I've owned them before but wasn't sold on them.

Des

[JohnM99]

Thanks, Dez - you obviously do a lot of work on this. Do you sell any of your work?

There is an interesting experiment going on right now by some guys in LA - perhaps you have already seen it - they are comparing a bunch of different skimmers - here is the link to the thread on reefcentral - quite interesting, I think -
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...5&pagenumber=1

Cheers
John