hahnmeister
In Memoriam
johns, as per reefgeek...
http://www.reefgeek.com/filtration/...ster/Bubble_Master_250_Protein_Skimmer_by_ATI
"For every 3 parts of water the pump pulls in 2 parts air for an efficiency rating of approximately 67%."
So 1000lph of air would suggest 1500lph of water. Of course, if there is more head pressure, the air goes down, and the water goes up.
Usually, less water flow is a good idea, but thats not always the case. If you design the skimmer around the pump to take advantage of this, or negate this, excessive water throughput can be nullified, or used to your advantage. Aquamedics have tons of water flow for the mere 600lph that each pump makes on the T5000 twin, but the distance between the pump's outlets and inlets is small...
...the result is that the water flow cancels itself out in such a tight loop at the bottom of the skimmer, so only bubbles end up going up the skimmer. Then the skimmer is so tall that the turbulence doesnt even reach that far up the 8" diameter, 6' tall body... by the time the bubbles reach the top, they are some of the nastiest, yet stable bubbles you can get. They have a long dwell time from the height, so each bubble is packed with proteins, and a bubble plate has nothing on the calm flow inside one of these things because of the extreme height: the turbulence gets left at the bottom. You just cant get a pump to move air at that depth unless you move alot of water like the Oceanrunners. Then again... you cant pack a 6' skimmer under your stand.
The other method is to space out the intake and outlet of the pumps on the skimmer. Like this one here...
The water flow of the pumps sucks the bubbles downwards from the outlet... giving bubbles an extremely long dwell time as they are suspended in the downdraft of all that water flow going down from the outlet to the pump intake.
Or, another design that wouldnt work unless the pump moved alot of water with the air woud be this one...
This skimmer was designed for the oceanrunner. If you used a Sicce or red dragon pump on such a design, the bubbles would just float up the wrong direction and the design would be useless, and the extended dwell time of the kreisel-like loop would be lost.
But, a pump with lots of water output like an Oceanrunner would be murder on a bubble-plate style skimmer. There wouldnt even be that many bubbles compared to all the upward jets that would be formed from the water flow... so you would need a much larger plate, or at least, larger/more holes. Like gtrestoration
said, you would swear you didnt even have a bubble plate.
Klaus, is the 1:1 ratio even possible? All the BKs seem to be 1 part air to 3 parts water at the best. It just seems like in order to draw in enough water to make the centrifugal pump work, you need at least the 2:3 ratio or the pump simply wont generate enough centrifugal force in the volute with the water to even suck in air... and that is the best out there (ati/tunze with 2:3), not to mention, only possible with very short skimmers.
http://www.reefgeek.com/filtration/...ster/Bubble_Master_250_Protein_Skimmer_by_ATI
"For every 3 parts of water the pump pulls in 2 parts air for an efficiency rating of approximately 67%."
So 1000lph of air would suggest 1500lph of water. Of course, if there is more head pressure, the air goes down, and the water goes up.
Usually, less water flow is a good idea, but thats not always the case. If you design the skimmer around the pump to take advantage of this, or negate this, excessive water throughput can be nullified, or used to your advantage. Aquamedics have tons of water flow for the mere 600lph that each pump makes on the T5000 twin, but the distance between the pump's outlets and inlets is small...
...the result is that the water flow cancels itself out in such a tight loop at the bottom of the skimmer, so only bubbles end up going up the skimmer. Then the skimmer is so tall that the turbulence doesnt even reach that far up the 8" diameter, 6' tall body... by the time the bubbles reach the top, they are some of the nastiest, yet stable bubbles you can get. They have a long dwell time from the height, so each bubble is packed with proteins, and a bubble plate has nothing on the calm flow inside one of these things because of the extreme height: the turbulence gets left at the bottom. You just cant get a pump to move air at that depth unless you move alot of water like the Oceanrunners. Then again... you cant pack a 6' skimmer under your stand.
The other method is to space out the intake and outlet of the pumps on the skimmer. Like this one here...
The water flow of the pumps sucks the bubbles downwards from the outlet... giving bubbles an extremely long dwell time as they are suspended in the downdraft of all that water flow going down from the outlet to the pump intake.
Or, another design that wouldnt work unless the pump moved alot of water with the air woud be this one...
This skimmer was designed for the oceanrunner. If you used a Sicce or red dragon pump on such a design, the bubbles would just float up the wrong direction and the design would be useless, and the extended dwell time of the kreisel-like loop would be lost.
But, a pump with lots of water output like an Oceanrunner would be murder on a bubble-plate style skimmer. There wouldnt even be that many bubbles compared to all the upward jets that would be formed from the water flow... so you would need a much larger plate, or at least, larger/more holes. Like gtrestoration
said, you would swear you didnt even have a bubble plate.
Klaus, is the 1:1 ratio even possible? All the BKs seem to be 1 part air to 3 parts water at the best. It just seems like in order to draw in enough water to make the centrifugal pump work, you need at least the 2:3 ratio or the pump simply wont generate enough centrifugal force in the volute with the water to even suck in air... and that is the best out there (ati/tunze with 2:3), not to mention, only possible with very short skimmers.
) and got it to 50 scfh @ 85 watts. The numbers are pretty much the same with 2-5 layers of PF4.
