What material use for mesh mod skimmer ?

[Aquattro]

After trimming mine properly, I have no issues restarting the pump.

[Skimmerking]

i think that was the reason of the sicce pumps having problems starting up , and if I would have known that I wouldn't have spent 1300 on a skimmer

[Tom R]

How do you secure the mesh to the impeller?
How many layers of mesh do you use?
Does anyone have any pictures of a completed impeller?

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by Tom R

How do you secure the mesh to the impeller?
How many layers of mesh do you use?
Does anyone have any pictures of a completed impeller?

The mesh is secured with the really small zapstraps, theyr'e pretty thin maybe 1/4" or so and very short. I think there are either 2 or 4 holes in the impeller to work with.

I used either 3 or 4 layers of mesh. Its very important to trim the mesh so that it is just slightly smaller than the diameter of the impeller so it doesn't move against the impeller housing, this will cause problems when restarting the pump.

I think Tony has pics somewhere on here, he did a very thorough instructional post on how to do the mesh mod. I'll see if I can find it Here it is: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...highlight=mesh

Oh and I didn't cut the pins off my needlewheel, I was too chicken I just slapped the enkamat on overtop of them, it actually worked quite nicely.

[Delphinus]

Here, not the best pictures but should give you an idea.
http://canreef.com/vbulletin/showthr...&highlight=pf4

I used two layers in my Sedra 5000, which was all that would fit. Had there been more room I would have tried for 3. I tried fishing line to attach at first but my fingers weren't nimble enough for little tiny knots so I just used two zapstraps instead. Hope this helps.

[Tom R]

Say Tony

Did you also mod your ASM G3 to be a recirculating skimmer.

Tom R

[robert J]

Tony when you said the word from "so so" to "wow" that makes me feel I can not wait any longer to do the mesh mod .... but unfortunately the guy at work who is saying he has PF4 was giving me a wrong kind of material. Can you tell me what you are using in your skimmer so at least I can do it right now instead of waiting to find PF4 in Canada. Every store I called today they do not carry it, only in US ... can't believe it !

[robert J]

I see ... thanks Christyf5. I know I am going to have a hard time to mess around with pvc pipe, no skill at all

[christyf5]

No no its not hard at all. Hang on I'll take some pics of mine and show you.

[christyf5]

Ok here we go,

list of supplies (I think it was about $50-60 altogether, with the gate valve being the bulk of the cost).

1-1/2" gate valve
1-1/2" tee
1-1/2" elbow
a length of 1-1/2" PVC pipe
two 1-1/2" thread x slip connectors (if you've purchased a threaded gate valve)

Ok so basically for me it was trial and error for the first length coming out of the bottom of the skimmer (there is a ER supplied elbow there). I think it ended up being about 3-4" total. I wanted the gate valve to be out of the water but it ended up being sort of half in the water due to the height of the whole aparatus.

I didn't PVC glue any of these parts, mostly because I hate gluing anything permanently (what if I could harvest some of these parts for later? ) and quite frankly, its all in the sump so who cares if something leaks? Anyway, I ended up using really short pieces of PVC to join the slipxslip pieces and then the last length of pipe that releases water into the sump can be any length as long as it is under the water. This does two things: 1. less noise and splash 2. less bubbles created in the sump

This photo should help: