External skimmer?

[SFish]

Can an external skimmer be ran off the overflow?

 

[Devolver]

i doubt it would have enough flow. the pump running my skimmer is 3600 GPH

 

[SFish]

It only needs 528gph. External skimmers use two pumps. Not sure if you can gravity feed into it or if it's going to back up the overflow.

 

[LowHangingFruit]

Maybe feed it off a manifold instead?

 

[SFish]

Found a bit of info on this. One of the reasons I like feeding the skimmer off the overflow is because it will skim all the water. I know most people use in sump skimmers.

 

[A sea K]

Feeding an external skimmer (or recirculating internal) directly from the overflow is actually the preferred method. A bit of a PITA to set-up so when I had mine I just used a small feed pump.

 

[SFish]

Did you use some kind of over flow protection when you had yours?

 

[CStrickland]

I used to think about skimmer efficiency like that, that it was better to skim all the water. But I read a lot about it and changed my mind. Basically, it is going to skim all the water anyway, sooner or later, because all the water is going to pass through the sump eventually. I was doing a lot of like calculations to try to get a good match of overflow gph and skimmer pump gph, and then it clicked that it doesn't matter. Unless you're running biopellets or zeovit where the outflow from a reactor needs to be skimmed, it's not worth the trouble.

There are benefits of an external skimmer, but this isn't one. And if your overflow is set up such that it's any kind of flood risk, it's def not worth it.

 

[A sea K]

Did you use some kind of over flow protection when you had yours?

No, I had it located in my sump so other than returning skimmate back to the tank overflowing was not an issue.