My redneck skimmer mod

[spit.fire]

Originally Posted by tentacles

I recently made a modded impeller for a MJ1200 to go on my seaclone.. It went from the noisiest clatter monster to roughly the same level as the eheim compact 1000 return pump.. It also makes the skimmer perform like never before! Bubbles are smaller and there are no longer large bubbles coming through.

What I did was cut the blades off the impeller and slipped a PVC "sleeve" over the shaft, then glued on bits of notched PVC from some pipe. The sleeve is a fairly tight fit, it actually makes the impeller's flip-flop action a little stiff. I believe this is what helps quiet things down; with an air-water mix doesn't provide as much or as consistent resistance so the impeller just bounces back and forth.

Anyways, the pictures are of version 1; version 2 was made with a slightly thicker wall on the PVC sleeve area, .040" instead of .028". The first one was too tight and split.

I had an idea to make these more easily by making the pvc sleeve have a wider flat area and glueing on 1/8" or 1/16" PVC rod as pins to make an actual needle wheel.

I've heard a lot of people cut up bio balls for needlewheel mods on maxijets

[tentacles]

Yeah, but the problem is finding the exact bio ball that fits over the impeller blades - I tried doing this with a bio ball that wasn't quite right and it worked for a while but then got ridiculously noisy and finally the pump just decided it wasn't going to turn that extra load anymore. Basically, that's why I even had a wrecked impeller to try modding - I'd had to trim 3 of the blades off to fit that bio ball on there in the first place, and it was useless after with only 3 blades on there.