Needlewheel to Meshwheel skimmer mod

[Chin_Lee]

jason
try to control the amount of air entering the venturi with a small valve and it should decrease the bubble level. as the pump breaks in more, increase the air flow to raise the bubble level.

[Jaws]

It's actually already started to settle down and I got 2" of stuff in the first 24 hours. It's definitely not as dark as the old stuff but it used to take a week to make what the mod has done in 24 hours. So far I'm happy and look forward to seeing the long term effects of this. The water line is still almost right to the top but the skimmate is thicker and darker now than the wet bubbles that it started pumping out first.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by Jaws

It's definitely not as dark as the old stuff but it used to take a week to make what the mod has done in 24 hours.

This is exactly my results - in fact it can pull out more in 24 hours than it used to make in a week. But the skimmate is definitely lighter. I used to pull out "Coca-cola black" skimmate, now it's more like "green tea".

But I wonder if it's not unreasonable to expect a lighter skimmate than before, if you're pulling it out faster maybe there's less DOC to pull out?

Because that my airflow hasn't increased and it doesn't appear to be a more voluminous (is that a word?) foam (like what others are claiming on RC), I'm reluctant to try lowering my water level (by opening the gate valve) too much because I'm afraid it will hit a threshold and basically stop producing skimmate. I'm still planning on modding the venturi and maybe the volute to see if I can pull the air volume #'s up a tiny bit.

[Jaws]

For me I think the color and thickness of the skimmate has to do with the water level in my skimmer. When I only had one pump running at one time and the water level in the skimmer would fill the reaction chamber, there was a nice thick foam that formed on the top. The fact that the color is weaker only makes me think that given a longer skimmer neck the foam would be thicker but that still doesn't mean that it's not pulling out the same amount of crud with wetter foam. It just overflows sooner and doesn't have a chance to form that thick foam. I can't see this being a downfall but I could be wrong.

[Jaws]

Well, it's been four days and the collection cup is full of dark skimmate. I was expecting the skimmate to be clearer but it's still pretty dark. Not quite as dark as before but almost. I'm totally impressed. I'd recommend this mod to anyone.

[Skimmerking]

Well I have a Recirculating euroreef 250 that I'm going to do tha mod once Tony sends me the stuff. I have 2 pumps on mine .

here is a picture of my skimmer that i will mod again

[Doug]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

Well I have a Recirculating euroreef 250 that I'm going to do tha mod once Tony sends me the stuff. I have 2 pumps on mine .

here is a picture of my skimmer that i will mod again

What the heck ya doing to that skimmer now.