Saboral
New member
As you all know I am running an Iwaki 70 as my skimmer feed and tank return pump. The pump intake is a 1" up and over out of my sump. The output side of the pump is 1" so I took a 1" line to a Tee and split off a 3/4" line for my return. The 1" continues on to the pump. Both outputs after the T have a ball valve to regulate the flow.
I have been dealing with "microbubbles" for sometime now and tonight I went and checked the up and over for possible obstructions and found a piece of broken acrylic that had gotten sucked right up to the intake and was just about blocking half of the pump intake. I removed it and reset my pump and everything was good again for a moment. Then I noticed bubbles and it dawned on me, cavitation. I closed down the flow on each valve a bit and got the hissing sound and vibration in the pump to stop. After a bit of calibration with the valves I have a pretty good flow in going both ways.
Now the problem is thus, I have what I believe to be "acceptable" flow to the tank (i.e. when I put my hand to the return I can feel a decent flow). I think that I am under powering the skimmer though because the water column in the skimmer just isn't what I think it should be. So now I have three possible solutions and I am trying to narrow the choices down. I want to rank these in order of functionality, ease of installation, and future costs (i.e. electricity, maintenance, etc....).
1) Run a 1.5" or 2" up and over to the 1" pump intake to ensure adequate volume to the pump.
2) Remove the return from the Iwaki and run it from a seperate Mag 4 I have in the sump.
3) Remove the second beckett injector and just run it with one injector (finer bubbles if all the pressure is to one.)
I have been dealing with "microbubbles" for sometime now and tonight I went and checked the up and over for possible obstructions and found a piece of broken acrylic that had gotten sucked right up to the intake and was just about blocking half of the pump intake. I removed it and reset my pump and everything was good again for a moment. Then I noticed bubbles and it dawned on me, cavitation. I closed down the flow on each valve a bit and got the hissing sound and vibration in the pump to stop. After a bit of calibration with the valves I have a pretty good flow in going both ways.
Now the problem is thus, I have what I believe to be "acceptable" flow to the tank (i.e. when I put my hand to the return I can feel a decent flow). I think that I am under powering the skimmer though because the water column in the skimmer just isn't what I think it should be. So now I have three possible solutions and I am trying to narrow the choices down. I want to rank these in order of functionality, ease of installation, and future costs (i.e. electricity, maintenance, etc....).
1) Run a 1.5" or 2" up and over to the 1" pump intake to ensure adequate volume to the pump.
2) Remove the return from the Iwaki and run it from a seperate Mag 4 I have in the sump.
3) Remove the second beckett injector and just run it with one injector (finer bubbles if all the pressure is to one.)