5' Skimmer Build in Progress

that, and they are very loud, I mean like you will hear them easily through many walls. they make air blowers which I think are similair and would have the power and are intended for such a setup.
 
For $159 you are not going to get a compressor that will handle that kind of duty cycle. You would likely need to look at compressors designed for draft beer systems. Any large commercial compressor would also likely do, but as mentioned would need to be heavily filtered. The cost/benefit ratio would never be reachable as compared to any other skimmer. You would be better off with several smaller skimmers running coarser stones with smaller air pumps.

Bean
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6411812#post6411812 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BeanAnimal
For $159 you are not going to get a compressor that will handle that kind of duty cycle. You would likely need to look at compressors designed for draft beer systems. Any large commercial compressor would also likely do, but as mentioned would need to be heavily filtered. The cost/benefit ratio would never be reachable as compared to any other skimmer. You would be better off with several smaller skimmers running coarser stones with smaller air pumps.

Bean
Click to expand...

along these lines if your pulling those kinds of watts, it doesnt really make sense, cause then you really can go grab a dart like spazz did and go totally crazy. those stones probably hope to get the bubble size of a needle wheel and at the same time they wont create a whole lot of bubbles. itd be alot of expensive noisy stuff for .1 or .2cfm of air.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6411178#post6411178 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by smjtkj
I just built a skimmer with a 10.5 inch acrylic reaction chamber. The body is 52 inches. There is a 4-5 inch cone riser and a 8 inch
riser tube made of 4 inch acrylic. I am wondering if a Hailea V-60
air pump will do the job on this thing. I built a manifold with 6 three inch fine pore airstones from aquaticeco mounted vertically.
The pump is supposed to be 60 lpm. I am just not sure about the pressure calculations.

Mike
Click to expand...

Assuming your stone depth is 52 inches + the 15 inches of back pressure the fine pore stones cause = 67 inches of water pressure = 2.414 psi of pressure to overcome.

Your pump puts out the equivialnt of 2.11 cfm, but at what pressure? Likely that output is at 0 psi. Without a pump curve, the output number is not of much use.

Dale
 
I got in my float switches, compressor, new stones, and vent valve today. I will stop by Lowes on the way home tomorrow and get my fittings to install the stones. I will also pick up the supplies for the float switches.

Dale
 
What are the float switches for (I did not read every post in this thread).

I have settled on a 4" design for my prototype. The stones will be (2)@3" and (2)@2"

This should give me enough air for my 48" bubble rise height. I am either going to run a few small pumps or save up and buy a larger alita or sweaterwater. Both the alita and sweatwater pumps look identical and are likely the same thing of the same line from an overseas OEM. They prices are similar also.

I am having trouble determining the skimmer neck length and proposed water height....

Bean
 
Well I just installed the pump (LT19). The advertised output on the pump curve is ~ 1.3 cfm @ 2.5 psi (to the best of my eye lookin at the curve posted on page 3). Well I measured it at 80 CFH wich converts to 1.33 CFM. So it looks as if whitewater has truth in there advertising.

I immediately shot foam and water over the top of the skimmer.

I built the manifold for the stones, but I am a 90 with threads short. I will only be able to fit 2 stones into the skimmer. The third just will not fit unless I arrange them verticle. I think 2 horizontal is better than 3 verticle (just my opinnion - when I look at stones it is the horizontal surface on the top making all the bubbles). I will report my results tomorrow after I install the new stones ant test them for size and bubble rise rate.

I installed the vent valve, and then removed it. My 1/2 bleed line running continuous from the top of the bubble tower (on the tank return pipeing) is more effective at sucking the bubbles out. The vent line is plumbed in such a way that it is a siphon. I will take pics tomorrow to show what I mean.

The float switches are to build a auto shut off for my tank return pump. They will be installed in the tank overflow tower. If the overflow tower water level starts to rise, it will shut off my return pump. As much monkeying with flow as I am doing on the return line I do not want to chance that I decrease my drain rate to lower than my return rate (already happened during fiddling around - I was in the basement happy as could be, the tank was steady overfilling till the wife cought it. Only a gallon spilled, but I ordered the floatswitches that night.)

Dale
 
is this pump louder than the last? What did you pay for it? I have read that both the alita and sweatwater pumps are rated at around 40db
 
It is much larger and quite a bit louder. I do not know the decibal rateing. The sweetwater are sold as quiet pumps, the whitewater are just sold as pumps.

Dale
 
Air bubbles rise at different rates based on size. I have been banking this whole thing on that fact. I was hopeful that the fine pore stones would give me that. I was both sad and happy with the results.

Fine pore stones gave me air bubbles just as fast as the medium pore stones. I saw bubbles 7 seconds after turning on the air (rise height 55"). That was the exact same as the medium pore stones. I was dissapointed. I then timed turning them off. The bubbles just kept comming and comming. The micro bubbles cept comming for more than 30 seconds. The rise rate was 1.67 inches/second. With my skimmer running at 2 gpm feed and 3 gpm recirc I timed the bubbles at 60 seconds.

My calculator predicts 59 seconds. Now there is certainly an error factor involved, so I am not going to swear my calculator is dead on. In fact the air volume predictions are completely wrong. That calculation assumes that all the bubbles rise at a consistent pace, and they do not. The micro bubbles rise much much slower. So a significant volume of air leaves the water at 7.86 inches/second. Yet a large number is the microbubbles rising at 1.67 inches/second.

I still have not gotten to tune my skimmer. Today I had skimmate. No pics, as it was not worthy. I have the water level set real low and the air volume is only set at about 45 CFH (using the larger bubbles as the basis of retention I need 54CFH to get the 13%). Anything over 60 and I have a flood. I will get to tune it this weekend when I make a better drain to my collection cup, and I install a new drain container.

Dale
 
How is the size with the new stones.

Do you feel the 2 stones are enough, or are they being overdriven and producing larger bubbles.

What is the water height compared to the bottom of the neck.

How long of e neck did you end up with (from top of taper to rim inside cup).

Bean
 
Bean,
I would have to measue the neck. I do not know that number off the top of my head. A stab in the dark is ~10" from taper to open skimmate cup.

A large percentage of the bubbles are about the size of circles in your # 8 key on your keyboard (not very scientific). Yet there is a very large number of the microbubbles. They are about the size of the . key!

As for the stones I am quite sure they are enough. My original numbers showed that 2 stones were nearing the edge of there abilities, but I am getting a little better bubble retention than that. The third stone just does not fit. When I was playing with the stones, about 95% of the bubbles came from the top horizontal surface. Only a few of the bigger bubbles came from the other sides.

Dale
 
And you have the actual water level running mutch lower than the neck? Lowering the water more and increasing the air may be something to look at. I am anxious for your reports so I can start construction of my beast.
 
I have my water level set several inches below the tapers when the air is off. As soon as the air is on, that level rises. The hartford loop is still set the same, but it is a matter of densities then. The hartford loop is all water, while the body is ~ 10 - 13% air. So the water side is less dense thus equalizes at a higher level than pure water in the hartford loop.

Dale
 
So you have yet to lower the loop and turn up the air... why go to bed tonigh. Stay up and tinker! The faster your work out the kinks, the less I will have to engineer and the more I can copy.

I did a ton of research today on linear piston pumps. Found out a good bit of info. I can't even think about using the pump you have, to much noise for my location.
 
Ther is always the sweetwaters.....

The loop is lowered to get the level that low. I did that to prevent floods till I have time to set it and recheck it every hour or two. That will have to wait till this weekend. Till then It will just have to operate with very minor adjustments and run as is. I really do not want to empty my sump whil I sleep or am at work. Maybe if I had a automatic waste collection cup, but that will have to wait till I build a air tight skimmer cup.

I did not glue the loop pipes in. I can still replace the pipes to get the level even lower if need be.

Dale
 
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