meschaefer

One to Ignore
Location
Astoria
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I just got my new DAS EX-2 set up on my 65 gallon tank, and I had a coulple of questions.

The skimmer does not come with any documentation, but it is pretty straight forward. Looking at the picture on Petorama.Net, it seems to me that the skimmer would be more efficeint if you turned the pumps upside down. Set up like it is in the picture, you are injecting the bubbles about a third of the way up the skimmer. My bubbles don't go to far below where the are injected into the skimmer. If you turned the pumps upside down, you would be injecting the bubbles that much further down.

Has anybody tried this? Any draw backs you could think of?

The PDF file at petorama.net does not work for me, does anbody have a working copy of the file they can send me.

Is there a way to adjust the water level in the skimmer?

Thanks.

matt
 

cali_reef

Fish and Coral Killer
Rating - 97.3%
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Matt, I have not tried my EX-3 that way, the only problem I can think of is the intake of the pump will suck in some of that fresh mixed and bubble saturated water before it have a chance to rise and bring the dissolved organic and protein up to the top. You may be taking some of the dwell time away by trying to increase the contact chamber volume.

Looks like DAS did not copy the Deltec design for batam, Deltecs have a 45 deg elbow at each outlet of the pump, forcing the bubbles further down few inches. I modified the EX-3 the same and was able to utilise few more inches of the body for longer contact time.

The only way to adjust the water level in the skimmer body is by changing the amount of water flow thru the skimmer. I guess you can also add a ball valve at the exit pipe, just right below the T fitting like a Deltec.
 

meschaefer

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Astoria
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Perhaps I will try adding the 45 degree elbows and see how that works.

If I turned the pump around, and it did suck in some of the fresh mixed and bubble saturated water, wouldn't that increase the dwell time as opposed to decreasing it? Afterall, it is kind of sending that water back to the bottom of the skimmer.

Perhaps a bigger problem would be too much air getting brought into the pump, causing the impeller to cavitate.
 

cali_reef

Fish and Coral Killer
Rating - 97.3%
36   1   0
Perhaps I will try adding the 45 degree elbows and see how that works.

If I turned the pump around, and it did suck in some of the fresh mixed and bubble saturated water, wouldn't that increase the dwell time as opposed to decreasing it? Afterall, it is kind of sending that water back to the bottom of the skimmer.

Perhaps a bigger problem would be too much air getting brought into the pump, causing the impeller to cavitate.

The dwell time will decrease since you are "pumping" the water around in circles within that distance. The slower movement up wards to the top is a longer dwell time route.

I don't think the pump will cavitate, since the pump is free to pull more air in from the venturi if the water not "pre-filled" with air bubbles.
 

jhale

ReefsMagazine!
Location
G.V NYC
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I placed a ball valve at the end of the skimmer output.

A better choice would be a gate valve, I just used what I had at the time.
 

meschaefer

One to Ignore
Location
Astoria
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I am going to wait untill it has had a chance to break in a bit. i kind of have it jury rigged in there. Once I finish my sump, I will redo the plumbing in a more professional manner. I will probably end up putting a gate valve on the output, I do have a couple of ball valves laying around, but there really a pain to fine tune. I may also end up with the 45 degree angles.
 

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