Anyone ever made a skimmer using an eductor?

[Anonymous]

I am curious if anyone has ever made a skimmer that uses an eductor instead of a beckett?

I am thinking that the eductor wouldn't be as prone to cloggin like the beckett is.

I just don't know how well the eductor would do at mixing air and water. The beckett does this very well.

Thoughts?

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

I think Galleon has done this, but he is in storm land and may not post for a few days.

 

[Anonymous]

An eductor doesn't seem like it would work, but then I haven't seen a becket so I don't know how it generates the foam.

I've seen Galleons skimmers, and if I recall correctly they are just a fitting of reduced diameter protruding into a fitting of increased diameter, which in turn is open to atmosphere with a standpipe to above water level. No special kind of fitting at all. I could be wrong though...

 

[ChrisRD]

Dan's right, the "injector" in Galleon's skimmer is basically a hose barb protruding into a slightly larger fitting/opening. Air is sucked in through the small space between the two. It's housed just like a Beckett with an air control valve, etc.

Some pics in this thread (although no detail of the injector setup).
http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=61787&start=0

 

[GSchiemer]

I suspect that an eductor would work very well in certain skimmer designs, such as the taller downdraft (ETSS) skimmers. I'm not sure that it would be as efficient in the shorter-stacked Beckett designed skimmers that I've seen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it worked well here too.

Greg

 

[Anonymous]

I think I'll try putting a eductor (actually a penductor since I have one) in a tee with an air valve on the tee. Same as the my current beckett is built.

I found a combination of 2" fittings that can house the penductor.

I am going to do this once power comes back on (friggin Wilma).

Louey

 

[ChrisRD]

I don't think the penductor idea will work as it's designed for fluid mixing. I think the gaps where the air is going to be pulled in will have to be much smaller.

 

[Anonymous]

Chris is right. Eductor is optimized for liquid/liquid (both liquid and gas are fluid, BTW), not liquid/gas. The viscosity of liquid and gas is so different that the design for one won't work well for the other.

 

[Anonymous]

This weekend I finally got around to re-doing my Beckett Skimmer as a Penductor skimmer.

When I first started the pump last night, I thought I'd hit a home run with this new idea. The bubbles that filled the skimmer body were fine micro bubbles and there were plenty of them. I looked as good if not better than the bubbles that the Beckett produced. No skimmate whatsoever though. I fiddles with the air valve and the gate valve and nothing would produce any skimmate. I though maybe it just needs some breaking in. I woke up this morning and again, no skimmate. Dammit. Now I don't understand. It seems to be doing everything a skimmer should do, but no skimmate.

Well, I came home tonight, and voila! Skimmate! I guess it did just need some breaking in. The PVC glue in the fittings probably was the culprit of the non-skimming.

The pictures below are of the skimmer as it appeared when I came home.

 

[Anonymous]

I dialed the gate valve down a bit to get more foam in the cup. The foam is really dry at this point. The picture below shows how the skimmer responded. It pushed the foam over the top of the cup in a matter of a couple of minutes.

I can't wait to fool around with this thing to see how responsive it is as far is getting wet foam and/or dry foam. I have a feeling that it is going to be good.

The clear water you see in the collection cup above is from when I flooded the cup when I first started the pump and had the gate vavle stopped down to far.

I am excited about this! Hopefully my problems with marine pills clogging my beckett are a thing of the past. And I was really hating the idea of laying down the cash for an Euroreef or Bubble King.

Louey

 

[magicman76]

Thanks Louey for being a gunie pig with the becket vs. eductor (Ive wondered if this would work with the right amount of air control myself).. seems you had the parts so you might as well tried it.. good work
btw. gallion is useing the eductor for flow in his setup and a spa ventrui to power the skimmer (I read that entire thread LOL thanks guys :wink: )

 

[ChrisRD]

So, did you use the mixing penductor that was in your tank or did you make the hose barb type injector out of PVC fittings (like Galleon's skimmer)?

 

[Anonymous]

I used one of the mixing penductors that was in my tank. I had 8 of them in my tank and needed to get rid of one so that my tongue coral could sit in that location. The penductor would have created way too much flow for a coral like a tongue. I actually capped that outlet off over a month ago and was procrastinating in making this mod to my beckett skimmer.

It's still skimming great.

It's too early to proclaim this as a great success, but so far I think the skimmer skims better with the penductor than it did with the beckett.

Time will tell.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

What type of pump are you using?

 

[Anonymous]

Iwaki MD40. Japanese model.

Louey

 

[ChrisRD]

That's interesting. I didn't think an eductor intended for fluid mixing would work well in this application but it's looking good so far. :wink:

Any pics or maybe a sketch that shows how the penductor is installed in the housing?

 

[Anonymous]

ChrisRd wrote:

That's interesting. I didn't think an eductor intended for fluid mixing would work well in this application but it's looking good so far.

I wouldn't have thought so either, but I knew that Galleon had made an eductor skimmer at the Mote Aquarium in Sarasota. I saw that skimmer in person and knew that it worked well. His design is not anything like a typical skimmer though. I had no idea if simply changing the beckett over to a penductor would do the job or not. I PM'd Galleon and he wasn't sure of it would work either.

So far so good.

Did you take any pics of the injector setup as you were building it?

I didn't take any pictures, but might consider writing up something in detail if this thing works over time. I built a second Beckett skimmer for a friend of mine. If this skimmer proves better than the beckett, I'll mod his skimmer and take full pictures.

Louey

 

[ChrisRD]

Cool - thanks Randy.

 

[magicman76]

Louey was your beckett skimmer a DIY model or a pre-fab? If pre-fab what make and model, if you dont mind?

 

[Anonymous]

My Beckett skimmer is the one that is taught in the MACO acrylics course. Templates for the parts are provided. You cut them and do all of the fabrication yourself.

The design is by Brian Ferguson (AKA Fergy here at RDO). He was the instructor of the course.

Louey