DIY Skimmer advice?

[Driftwood]

I intend on building two 5-gallon water bottle skimmers. One is for my 100 gallon(with sump) setup and the other is for a friends 300 gallon(with sump) setup.

Here is a short thread with good pictures: http://www.aquahobby.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=38764&highlight=

I have built a DIY skimmer before and it worked great. I wanted some advice before I started building a skimmer of this size.

I was thinking about a recirculating skimmer using a 550GPH pond pump, modded with a meshwheel type impeller. Using a maxijet 900 as a feed pump? Is that enough of a feed pump?

My other thought was to run the pond pump with a homemade venturi or air pump, but I like the idea of the recirculating skimmers. Are they really that much better? Is it mostly because of the smaller bubble size?

My other question had to do with the skimmer for the 300 gallon setup. Is a 5 gallon water bottle skimmer enough for a system of this size? I think he has a T1 pump set aside for this.

Thanks!
Dave

 

[Horace]

Recirc skimmers dont product any smaller bubbles than the other needlewheels, they are just better because you can increase the dwell time in the skimmer by slowing the exiting water to the rate of the feed rather than the rate of the needlewheel. You can also feed the skimmer with your overflow which has a higher concentration of proteins than typical sump water.

 

[RandyStacyE]

Here is some interesting reading for anyone who wants to build a skimmer. It truely is a 'must read'. It pretty much answers most questions RE: different types of skimmers, how tall, diameter and flow through gph rate.

http://www.hawkfish.org/snailman/skimmer101.htm

 

[Driftwood]

Thanks for the link, I have read that and it's an excellent guide. It has a focus on air-stone driven skimmers and not much info on the newer techniques though. Since I'm using a 5 gallon water jug for a skimmer body it isn't going to be able to be 4-5 feet high, reducing the dwell time, hopefully the recirculating pump will increase the dwell time...

For my setup the guide recommends 75GPH. If I used my overflow it would be getting 600GPH. I could just go out and grab a maxijet400 for the feed pump. That would be more then enough. Any other opinions on flow through a skimmer of this design?

I will be taking the feed water from the first chamber of my sump. That should work just as well, all the water in that chamber came directly from the overflow.

I guess I thought the the recirc skimmers pulled back in bubbles and chopped them up finer?

Thanks!

 

[Driftwood]

So I went out and bought all the plumbing I'm gonna need to build this, and a mini pump that pushes 110GPH for a feed pump. All I need for materials now is the 5 gallon jug and something for a neck and cup.

Anyone have any more advice before I start cutting holes?

 

[kentrob11]

How about using a Gen-X 4100 with meshwheel for the recirc pump? It works great and mine are pulling about 19.5 LPH of air...much more than the sedra 9000 does. Looks like an easy and cheap skimmer! I'll bet it works great too

 

[Driftwood]

Thanks! I looked at the Gen-X 4100 pump and it looks like it would kick butt.

I got a 600GPH pond pump for free though, so I'm gonna try and mod that first. If I cant get it to work good I will go for the 4100.