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#1
04-16-2007, 06:20 AM
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Quote:
 No kidding, I'm hoarding my extra impellers from those bad pumps now....big money $$$ 
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#2
04-16-2007, 02:22 PM
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Wow Tony, you finally took the plunge! Thank God it worked eh?
 One thing I noticed after doing the mod myself (without cutting the needles off the needlewheel cuz I'm a big chicken) was that if you don't have the enkamat trimmed back pretty well on the needlewheel the pump won't start up right away. Even after some generous trimming I find it takes a few seconds for the needlewheel to kick in. The bubbles are definitely finer and the skimmer produces more skimmate than before This has given me more courage to cut the needles off but I'll still procrastinate some more till I do it 
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Christy's Reef Blog My 180 Build Every electronic component is shipped with smoke stored deep inside.... only a real genius can find a way to set it free.
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#3
04-16-2007, 04:21 PM
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It took me a full on month after getting the enkamat to work up the courage to start cutting the impeller. Even after reading thread after thread, page after page of it on RC and other boards, I was still hesitant (because I find I always tend to be the one exception where things don't work as well as they do for others). I even ended up pulling the sump and reworking the baffles in an effort to procrastinate on the impeller mod. I finally convinced myself by making sure I could order a new impeller.
Marc, no I didn't grind out the volute. I totally envision myself screwing that part up  .. I'll have to do some reading and see some pictures of it being done before I'll get the nerve to try that. I can sort of see it being helpful, but I totally see me just finding out in the end that I just wrecked the pump.Wait .. is the volute the cap that goes over the impeller or is it the part where the impeller sits in the pump itself? It occurs to me that I'm not even sure what a volute is.  And I didn't realize that people were pushing air into the skimmers. So is that a more common thing then? You were the first person I ever heard of who was directly pushing air in, but I thought it was because the skimmer and the pumps you're using are .. um .. well .. somewhat larger than average?  Would any old airpump do? I suppose I could try experimenting with different pumps I've got lying around. I spent the money on the flow meter might as well try to get some use out of it. If I find anything out about how much air I can push, I will post some results in here.
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-- Tony My next hobby will be flooding my basement while repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall and tearing up $100 bills. Whee! Last edited by Delphinus; 04-16-2007 at 04:24 PM.
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#4
04-16-2007, 04:39 PM
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i remember when reading about building air driven skimmers you have to use non-diaphram air pumps. dunno if it'd be the same case for a force air venturi skimmer
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Everything I put in my tank is fully dependant on me.
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#5
04-16-2007, 04:43 PM
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The problem there is that the backpressure of pushing air through the wooden airstones is hard on the diaphrams and they stretch out and lose their effectiveness after a while. In this case you'd be pushing air into suction anyhow so it should be OK. Having said that though, I don't know what a typical air pump pushes in terms of litres per minute. It could be that you still need a spendy-ish air pump just to get the requisite volume of air moving into the skimmer. I don't know, but I can assure you I'm wasting my time here at work looking into this very thing as we speak
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-- Tony My next hobby will be flooding my basement while repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall and tearing up $100 bills. Whee! Last edited by Delphinus; 04-16-2007 at 04:45 PM.
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#6
04-16-2007, 05:00 PM
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Tony if you dont mind me asking, How much did the airflow meter cost?
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M2CW
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#7
04-16-2007, 06:06 PM
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I'm getting pretty close to doing this mod too so I'm just tagging along to hear everyone's experieces.
Can you use a dremel to cut the needles off or do you think a knife or blade is better? Where's the best place to order a Sedra 5000 impeller just in case?
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Jason
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#8
04-16-2007, 08:54 PM
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drill the venturi
Tony
find a drill bit that will make the venturi hole slightly larger but not enough to make it brittle and break. If it does break, push the air line through the hole. here is a pic from Kentrob11 on RC who created a venturi by plumbing a line through a pvc fitting. the narrowing of the water passage creates a venturi. Make sure the angle of the pipe cut is towards the pump's intake. 
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____________ If people don't die, it wouldn't make living important. And why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. Last edited by Chin_Lee; 04-16-2007 at 11:48 PM. Reason: knew i would forget the photo
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#10
04-18-2007, 03:51 AM
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Pic worked for me, I have a question, maybe not a very good one but non the less here it goes. With finer bubbles and more skimmate, do you anticipate your salinity will drop as fresh water is topped off to compensate? I know your not taking a large amount of water out but I found my SG decreased when I set the skimmer for wet foam rather than dry foam.
Doug
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