DIY Red Dragon Pumps, gathering ideas.

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See page 2.

Laguna 900 (900gph) = Aquaclear Hi-Spec 5000 which became the Aquaclear 901 which is now the Aquaclear 110.

This motorblock is also used with different impellers and volute for the Laguna 600 and 1300. All of these have a shaft which needs a support on the intake side, so modding them isnt as easy as most.

The Laguna 1500 (1500gph) has the disk supported impellers, like the larger Lagunas, so no shaft support on the intake is needed... just an enlarged volute.
 
Correction: 600 isnt even same motorblock as 900... its based on the Hi-Spec 4000 powerhead. So the 900 and 1300 are the same motor, the 1300 just has a larger impeller. If you look up the parts pictures on azponds.com, you will see.
 
Guy, the 1300 is a real pain to turn into a skimmer pump...the stock volute is too small to allow much air, and the need for the shaft support makes it a real PITA to fabricate a volute for. If you ar looking for a laguna that will work as a skimmer pump, look at the slightly larger 1500 that aneeds no shaft support on the inlet.

But, to answer your question: Yes, that is a decent price...Check Ebay though, i've seen brand new 2400 going for $125...that's half of retail ;D
 
OK, thanks for the heads up JC.
For some reason I was under the impression that the 1300 was sans the front supported mount as well.

And that price I quoted was an eBay price as well.
 
Here is the powerjet 3000 (1283 gph) that I've modified awhile ago in action. I've not done anything further to the skimmer due to the fact that I no longer have large tank. Note that level of water inside the skimmer is same as outside because there is no cover at the base of the skimmer.
http://www.azponds.com/subpumps.htm

Click on picture to see video
 
I have read this thread 2 times. I want to thank everyone for your input the collective experimentation on these pumps is great.

Hahns, I want to especially thank you for your input. I’ve learned a considerable amount from reading this.

In a few months I’ll be building my first skimmer and am presently considering using a laguna mesh mod pump. I am looking for some feedback concerning which pump to use and skimmer design.

I have a 190 display and will have a little over 400 G in the entire system. Fishroom is in a crawlspace /w 48” headroom.

I am planning on building a square bodied skimmer. Going square bodied, I can make the body as wide as I want, but height will need to a little less than 48”.

I will probably go /w a round bubble plate 4" tall and will probably use a round neck/collection cup.

I have seen the skimmer design below, and was wondering what you would recommend for sizes considering it is square :
1. neck height, and width
2. body height and width
3. which size pump you would recommend
4. the mods that you have found to work best with this pump
5. I assume that inlets and outlets for skimmer and pumps would be in the center of the skimmer
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9995228#post9995228 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hahnmeister
You can recirc it like this... a modification of the ATI bubble plate...
12x30recircbubblemastertallpeg.jpg


I stay too busy with work and family to have tons of time for experimentation, so any and all feedback will be greatly appreciated.
 
The above design will not work if its square, needs to be a cylinder. The inlet for the pumps is at a tangent (not on the centerline, so there's #5 for you too) to the cylinder (like ATI's) so the air/water spins in a cyclone under the plate, since there are flat portions under the plate w/o holes where bubbles can stagnate and build up into larger ones. So for that design, a square body will not work. And as a consequence, a 12" diameter acrylic body is very expensive.

If you are at all capable of bending acrylic, I would suggest making either a cone or a pyramid as alternatives. You could also use a BK deluxe style bubble plate where the whole bubble plate is 8" in diameter only. The SWC/MSX style skimmers do this as well. This would allow you to use a cylindrical bubble plate inside a square body.

The other thing is that with that tall of a skimmer body, I was pretty much forced to use an alita linear air pump to feed the pump air since its under 4' of pressure.

For what you want, I would scrap that design. I did make a nice 8x8x48" tall square body skimmer years ago though that worked very well with a bubble plate even (removable bubble plate).
 
I was thinking of a (removable) cylindrical bubble plate within a square body, so this will not work?

Concerning height, I would be better off to be a little shorter than 48" - more like 36- 40".
 
el aguila :

here is a total height 48" skimmer 8" diameter run with laguna 1500 pull about 24-25LPM

PIC_0032-2.jpg


PIC_0039.jpg


the pipe are about 6 feet length from the sump to the skimmer (i test the pump in the sump feeding the skimmer out)

you can see in the sump behind 30" high skimmer for compare.....
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12389107#post12389107 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by el aguila
I was thinking of a (removable) cylindrical bubble plate within a square body, so this will not work?

Concerning height, I would be better off to be a little shorter than 48" - more like 36- 40".

Octagonal, Square... no matter. As long as the bubble plate is circular (or some other design that prevents any stagnation of bubbles).

A 36"-40" tall skimmer would work very well with a bubble plate and a Laguna pump once modded.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12390991#post12390991 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by loc01
That looks very impressive. Does the skimmer outlet pipe wide openned or half closed?

Loc

Hi Loc

the outlet close little bit and it was just break in so there was more place to close....

the high of the outlet 1.5" pipe was 24" .

here is short video when it was fire up :)


 
So has anyone messed around with the 4200 yet? I'm thinking of using it instead of a dart on my 24"OD x (48"-60" haven't decided yet) (reaction chamber) skimmer.
Anyone have one for sale?......
What kind of head pressure do you think the 4200 meshmodded could handle probably only <36" I'm guessing, I have a medo 602 air pump I could force feed it with which is what I'm using with my dart now...
I'm just not a fan of having a non-submersible pump on a skimmer and I've had a lot of overheating issues with my dart.
 
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