Flow through skimmers

[HowieB]

Hi all, from the pictures I've seen of sumps, the skimmer just sits in one of the compartmrnts. Does it just get water from the compartment it's in and pump out the skimmed water into the same compartment? Also doesn't some or the water flow around the skimmer and not go through it? Or am I missing something? I don't have a sump on my current 55 gal tank, but I'm going to upgrade to a 90 gal and would like to have a 20 gal sump on that one. Thanks

 

[skimmy]

no, your not missing anything, your right, some of the water isnt going to make it through, but sometimes the pump feeding the skimmer is so powerful that it recirculates the water, it can go either way depending on your skimmer.

 

[reefnetworth]

it dependson the skimmer. some can be insump, which means the water flows through in one direction. intake from one output from the other. if your water flows left to right. intake H2o from input left to output right. some skimmers can sit in floor and be plumbed to reduce the heat in tank. some are hang-on back (HOB) attach to wall of tank. preferably the back in the same fashion as H2o flow. adjust flow controls are on most, you want to have almost full flow in most cases. hope this helps some. reasearch + patience = reef...REEF-ON!!!

 

[Randall_James]

The ideal situation puts the richest water to the skimmer first. Say an area where your overflow comes into sump and that water is sent to the skimmer before it can be diluted with water already in the sump.

My skimmer is designed to work in/out of sump, I leave it in the sump for any leakage, drips or other messes that could occur. I have a 30G tall tank with a 3 sections. 1 is inflow for skimmer feed, 2 is rubble/macro algae area, 3 is thru the baffles and to the return pumps

 

[Fred_J]

There is a very good sticky thread on skimmers by Anthony Calfo. I believe its in advanced topics. After using some of his suggestions my Excalibur (not a very good skimmer) started pulling out container full of dark smelly skimmate every day. I did eventually go to an ER skimmer and moved the Excalibur to a smaller tank. Don't be put off by the size of the thread, most of the good stuff is in the first few pages.

The biggest improvement came by putting my skimmer in a cheap plastic bucket in the sump. The tank drain hose went in to the bucket and the skimmer output ran out by passing the bucket. Any water that was not used by the skimmer overflowed into the sump. This let the skimmer get access to straight unfiltered concentrated waste water (hopefully the oily stuff that accumulates and is skimmed from the top of the display tank.

Please try reading it.

 

[HowieB]

Thanks Fred, Anthony's thread explains what I'm looking for. If the skimmer just sits in the sump, alot of the water going through it has already been skimmed. Very inefficient. A better way would be to let the tank water flow into the sump compartment containing the skimmer and directing the skimmer output into a second compartment to continue through the sump instead of mixing with the return water from the tank.

 

[Randall_James]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7310933#post7310933 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Randall_James
The ideal situation puts the richest water to the skimmer first. Say an area where your overflow comes into sump and that water is sent to the skimmer before it can be diluted with water already in the sump.

the problem is with matching the flows. Also, some use entirely to large a return pump from the sump. This runs far more water than the skimmer can process and so it dilutes the water and makes the skimmer much less efficient.