Thinking about a new skimmer

[Anonymous]

This is very interesting Thales.

Fox example on my 58G - I have a Mag12 as my return pump. Its rated at 1200 GPH but in reality it is probably only pushing 6-800 to the tank.

My skimmer is a Euroreef ES5-3 rated at 90 gallon and has a Sedra 3500 powering it. That is rated at 350 GPH.

I see what you are saying and I am wondering if this is a major problem for my tank?

There is not much you can do with this skimmer to mod it.

I am wondering if I need a different skimmer? The return pump is part of the flow in the tank so I really dont want to turn that down. If I do that means more power heads.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't know if it is a problem or not, and certainly there are many people with systems set up the way yours is. If your animals are fine, I wouldn't worry. I would guess it also depends on the reasoning behind why you did everything in your system.

The paradigm used to be to run as big a return pump as your sump and overflows could handle, but that has changed. More people are using smaller returns and using closed loops and in tank water movers (tunze, vortech, etc) to keep the water in the tank moving.

 

[bleedingthought]

Question is, how do you match your return pump with the skimmer rate? Just use the head loss calculator? What about those of us running other things (like reactors) from our return line?

 

[Anonymous]

Question is, how do you match your return pump with the skimmer rate? Just use the head loss calculator? What about those of us running other things (like reactors) from our return line?

In that situation, you are doomed. There is nothing you can do.

 

[bleedingthought]

Question is, how do you match your return pump with the skimmer rate? Just use the head loss calculator? What about those of us running other things (like reactors) from our return line?

In that situation, you are doomed. There is nothing you can do.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[bleedingthought]

But seriously...

 

[Anonymous]

Most people running a recirculating skimmer will have a bypass that goes back into the sump on their return pump. That way you can control the amount of water running into the skimmer without putting much back pressure on the pump. Then you can also run what ever lines to whatever else you like, and it makes it easy to use the sump as a frag grow out area.

 

[bleedingthought]

Exactly what I plan to do!

Question is, how do you calculate how much water you're actually sending up to the tank (and therefore how much is draining into the skimmer) after the bypass?

 

[Anonymous]

Short answer...a bucket and a timer. Count how many gallons per minute multiply by 60

There are devices but they're costly and a bucket and timer is just to easy.

If you want to know how much the tank is draining, use the bucket on your overflow

 

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any experience using one of the larger Octopus re-circ skimmers? For the price I could get for my Barr beckett I could buy a bigger Octopus skimmer (like the Dual pump needle wheel 250). Without spending any additional money I could cut my electricity consumption by about 85 watts.

But, will that be enough skimmer for my fish load?
(Sorry to take this thread off topic... )

 

[bleedingthought]

Short answer...a bucket and a timer. Count how many gallons per minute multiply by 60

There are devices but they're costly and a bucket and timer is just to easy.

If you want to know how much the tank is draining, use the bucket on your overflow

Ah, how come that didn't dawn on me? Thanks yet again, Gresham!

 

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any experience using one of the larger Octopus re-circ skimmers? For the price I could get for my Barr beckett I could buy a bigger Octopus skimmer (like the Dual pump needle wheel 250). Without spending any additional money I could cut my electricity consumption by about 85 watts.

But, will that be enough skimmer for my fish load?
(Sorry to take this thread off topic... )

I haven't used one, but the reports are that its a nice skimmer. Seems to me the model you are looking at should be fine for your system.

 

[Anonymous]

Sweet
The one thing I really like about a Beckett is that I can turn it way up and skim extremely wet if I want to for some reason (like if I piss off a coral and it slimes up, or even if I just want to pull out water for a water change)

I will have to think about how much that functionality is worth to me.
I may just go ahead and list my current skimmer and see if I get any interest in it.

 

[Anonymous]

I have a gate valve modification on my ASM needle wheel and I can turn it up to skim wet just like you describe above.

 

[Anonymous]

Well I guess that solves that problem

 

[bleedingthought]

(Sorry to take this thread off topic... )

Sorry 'bout that, Marcus.

 

[Anonymous]

Thales,

i don't know if we are on the same page at all.

i am aware of the dilution effects of water change percentages.. although i am certainly not an expert on the subject.
it only cuts the mustard to a point here... we aren't actually changing any water out and because it is a closed system the water we are cleansing is coming back to the skimming process again, regardless.
how clean that returning water is depends upon how much of it has recently been run through a skimmer.

Think of dilution as a principle. Instead of changing water we are skimming water. If half (or whatever) the water going by the skimmer in the sump is not skimmed, and that 'dirty' water is mixed with skimmed water the dilution idea comes into play and it takes longer for that unskimmed water to get back to the skimmer. Even when it does get back to the sump, there is a chance it will go right by the skimmer again unskimmed.

you are adding confusion.
there should be no consideration for dilution upstream of the return pump.
in fact, if it hadn't gone through the sump unskimmed and was left in the display tank from the beginning of the cycle it would be even dirtier from being there.

ideally we would want the volume of raw water processed by the skimmer (different from the actual amount available to the skimming process) to be equal to the skimmers maximum output.

Wait a sec, this is my whole point.

and i understand that, i just don't think what you are describing works toward this ideal, i think it does the opposite.

realistically this can only be obtained by running the entire volume of water single file through the skimmer. this is not what oyu and i have referred to as traditional.

I don't know about traditional or not, but there are lots of people doing just that for a while now. Some via recirculating skimmers, some with a skimmer chamber where water must be skimmed before it moves on through the sump and gets moved on through the sump via the skimmer exit pipe.

i used the word traditional because that is what you described it as, sounds appropriate enough.
i can understand how a chamber would work but only if the skimmer's outlet was seperated from the chamber completely, otherwise is would be counterproductive and causing the loss in the desired effect as i am trying to describe to you.

let's say a skimmer has an output of 2000 GPH and a 1 hr cycle subjects 2000 gallons to the skimming process via a 2000 GPH return pump.
this will run more water through the skimmer twice than it would if the volume subjected was increased to 3000 gallons using a larger return pump.

I don't understand the second sentence.

if you put a skimmer in a 2000 gallon tank for an hour and then removed it to place it in a 3000 gallon tank for an hour, which tank will have the greatest amount of fluid that has made more than one pass through the skimmer?
the 2000 gallon tank.
it will be cleaner water yet it will have less skimmate removed from it's water.

now, i believe the funkier the skimmer's inlet water, the more funk a skimmer will remove, agreed?

Sure, but the point is to remove the funk, not leave it around so the skimmer skims evenly 24 hours a day.

hey, this is my point

so running more through the skimmer twice means the total gallonage skimmed was cleaner so you will remove less funk using the 2000 GPH return pump.

But ti doesn't all go through the skimmer - that depends on how much your skimmer skims per hour, not how much water goes through the sump. You aren't running more through the skimmer twice, you are running the same through the skimmer and moving the same right by the skimmer unskimmed.

i think i described this above. unless the discharge of the skimmer is removed from the skimming area you will skim more twice.

i would love to reply more but i gotta run!

I agree. The limiting factor is the amount of water your skimmer can skim. If your skimmer is in the sump and your return pump moves more water through the sump than the skimmer can skim it will take longer to skim all the water in the system.

i find this faulty.

while one return pump might be transfering 98% skimmed water it might only be doing it at 1000 GPH whereas a more efficient design could be moving return water that is 50% skimmed at 3000 GPH.
the second one will skim the entire volume quicker... no?

Depends on how much the skimmer can process. Return little to do with how much water the skimmer skims. If your skimmer does 500 gph, 1000 gph through the sump mean 50% of the water through the sump isn't touched by the skimmer.

i think a more accurate limiting factor would be the amount of raw water your skimmer has access to, the more raw water that you throw by it the more it can skim.
of course this isn't the only limiting factor.
the work a given skimmer can perform is definately worth considering.

Your skimmer can only skim as much as it can skim regardless of how much water is moving by it. If you though more water by it than it can skim, the water that it does skim is diluted by dirty water.

anyway, i wouldn't be at all surprised if i am missing something larger in the picture here.

my apologies to PitPat as i am not really discussing his skimmer anymore.

 

[Anonymous]

Thales,

i don't know if we are on the same page at all.

i am aware of the dilution effects of water change percentages.. although i am certainly not an expert on the subject.
it only cuts the mustard to a point here... we aren't actually changing any water out and because it is a closed system the water we are cleansing is coming back to the skimming process again, regardless.
how clean that returning water is depends upon how much of it has recently been run through a skimmer.

Think of dilution as a principle. Instead of changing water we are skimming water. If half (or whatever) the water going by the skimmer in the sump is not skimmed, and that 'dirty' water is mixed with skimmed water the dilution idea comes into play and it takes longer for that unskimmed water to get back to the skimmer. Even when it does get back to the sump, there is a chance it will go right by the skimmer again unskimmed.

you are adding confusion.
there should be no consideration for dilution upstream of the return pump.

I think you are misunderstanding what I am talking about in terms of dilution.

in fact, if it hadn't gone through the sump unskimmed and was left in the display tank from the beginning of the cycle it would be even dirtier from being there.

I don't know what you are talking about, or what this has to do with what I have been talking about.

ideally we would want the volume of raw water processed by the skimmer (different from the actual amount available to the skimming process) to be equal to the skimmers maximum output.

Wait a sec, this is my whole point.

and i understand that, i just don't think what you are describing works toward this ideal, i think it does the opposite.

Whaddya mean. My whole point was balancing the amount of water coming from the tank with what the skimmer can process.

realistically this can only be obtained by running the entire volume of water single file through the skimmer. this is not what oyu and i have referred to as traditional.

I don't know about traditional or not, but there are lots of people doing just that for a while now. Some via recirculating skimmers, some with a skimmer chamber where water must be skimmed before it moves on through the sump and gets moved on through the sump via the skimmer exit pipe.

i used the word traditional because that is what you described it as, sounds appropriate enough.
i can understand how a chamber would work but only if the skimmer's outlet was seperated from the chamber completely, otherwise is would be counterproductive and causing the loss in the desired effect as i am trying to describe to you.

Exactly. In my system, the water leaving the skimmer goes to a different chamber in the sump.

let's say a skimmer has an output of 2000 GPH and a 1 hr cycle subjects 2000 gallons to the skimming process via a 2000 GPH return pump.
this will run more water through the skimmer twice than it would if the volume subjected was increased to 3000 gallons using a larger return pump.

I don't understand the second sentence.

if you put a skimmer in a 2000 gallon tank for an hour and then removed it to place it in a 3000 gallon tank for an hour, which tank will have the greatest amount of fluid that has made more than one pass through the skimmer?
the 2000 gallon tank.
it will be cleaner water yet it will have less skimmate removed from it's water.

I don't get what you are trying to say.

now, i believe the funkier the skimmer's inlet water, the more funk a skimmer will remove, agreed?

Sure, but the point is to remove the funk, not leave it around so the skimmer skims evenly 24 hours a day.

hey, this is my point

Then I am not sure what you are disagreeing with me about.

 

[Anonymous]

(Sorry to take this thread off topic... )

Sorry 'bout that, Marcus.

No need for that
This is a great discussion

 

[Anonymous]

Thales,

i don't know if we are on the same page at all.

i am aware of the dilution effects of water change percentages.. although i am certainly not an expert on the subject.
it only cuts the mustard to a point here... we aren't actually changing any water out and because it is a closed system the water we are cleansing is coming back to the skimming process again, regardless.
how clean that returning water is depends upon how much of it has recently been run through a skimmer.

Think of dilution as a principle. Instead of changing water we are skimming water. If half (or whatever) the water going by the skimmer in the sump is not skimmed, and that 'dirty' water is mixed with skimmed water the dilution idea comes into play and it takes longer for that unskimmed water to get back to the skimmer. Even when it does get back to the sump, there is a chance it will go right by the skimmer again unskimmed.

you are adding confusion.
there should be no consideration for dilution upstream of the return pump.

I think you are misunderstanding what I am talking about in terms of dilution.

in fact, if it hadn't gone through the sump unskimmed and was left in the display tank from the beginning of the cycle it would be even dirtier from being there.

I don't know what you are talking about, or what this has to do with what I have been talking about.

ideally we would want the volume of raw water processed by the skimmer (different from the actual amount available to the skimming process) to be equal to the skimmers maximum output.

Wait a sec, this is my whole point.

and i understand that, i just don't think what you are describing works toward this ideal, i think it does the opposite.

Whaddya mean. My whole point was balancing the amount of water coming from the tank with what the skimmer can process.

realistically this can only be obtained by running the entire volume of water single file through the skimmer. this is not what oyu and i have referred to as traditional.

I don't know about traditional or not, but there are lots of people doing just that for a while now. Some via recirculating skimmers, some with a skimmer chamber where water must be skimmed before it moves on through the sump and gets moved on through the sump via the skimmer exit pipe.

i used the word traditional because that is what you described it as, sounds appropriate enough.
i can understand how a chamber would work but only if the skimmer's outlet was seperated from the chamber completely, otherwise is would be counterproductive and causing the loss in the desired effect as i am trying to describe to you.

Exactly. In my system, the water leaving the skimmer goes to a different chamber in the sump.

let's say a skimmer has an output of 2000 GPH and a 1 hr cycle subjects 2000 gallons to the skimming process via a 2000 GPH return pump.
this will run more water through the skimmer twice than it would if the volume subjected was increased to 3000 gallons using a larger return pump.

I don't understand the second sentence.

if you put a skimmer in a 2000 gallon tank for an hour and then removed it to place it in a 3000 gallon tank for an hour, which tank will have the greatest amount of fluid that has made more than one pass through the skimmer?
the 2000 gallon tank.
it will be cleaner water yet it will have less skimmate removed from it's water.

I don't get what you are trying to say.

now, i believe the funkier the skimmer's inlet water, the more funk a skimmer will remove, agreed?

Sure, but the point is to remove the funk, not leave it around so the skimmer skims evenly 24 hours a day.

hey, this is my point

Then I am not sure what you are disagreeing with me about.

okay... i think the major cause of our disagreement would be in regards to this chamber issue.
most in sump skimmers on the market make no provisions for routing it's discharge into another area of the system and i dare say that most people leave them stock when they buy them.
every major plug and play i can think of, be it Euroreef, nautilus, aqua C, ETSS or otherwise, will simply dump the cleansed water directly into the same vicinity from whence it came.
if i had known that we were discussing a setup that was other than this standard type i might have had an entirely different conversation and probably a much shorter one

if you were to reevaluate everything i have said thus far with the knowledge that i am talking about a skimmer like an oldschool euroreef with the adjustable riser then i would hope you would understand most of what i have written here.
also i would think that you would understand why i could not accept what you were telling me.
you need not bother doing so, but hopefully this would be the case if you were to do so.

and then even so, i think that the dilution thing is bogus.
you are simply running more water through the sump than necessary for the skimmer.

i do agree that the water running through the return pump would be cleaner water if the sump turnover rate matched that of the skimmer in a system with a remote skimmer discharge/chamber type setup.
but i don't think there would be a diminished value on the systems water quailty at large by running more water than necessary...
the water discharged by the skimmer will be diluted by the same sum of total system water regardless of how much extra water is being moved from sump to main tank.