I need skimmer and Calcium Reactor ideas for possible mass production

[adamjr]

Hi all,

I was talking to a guy today for a bit. He's a friend of my brother. His kids play with my brother's kids. After he asked me what I do for a living I reciprocated with the same question.

Turns out he owns an acrylic manufacturing business. He builds mostly store displays and plastic photo display items but he told me he can get anything and fabricate anything.

He is a fresh water aquarist and not very knoledgeable about saltwater but we discussed how much equipment is made from acrylic and what it costs for saltwater. When I described the construction of the average skimmer or calcium reactor and the average prices he was not surprised but said that even at low volume production the prices could be far lower and still afford a nice profit.

We discussed partnering up for a limited production run but I told him I would do some research into what people really want design-wise and what they think the fair and reasonable prices should be.

So what I really want to know is:

1: What model and type skimmer you like best.

2:What design changes would you make to make it a.) more efficient and b.) easier to maintain.

3:What do you think it should actually cost (really cost to be fairly priced, not like a dollar)

And the same questions for a Calcium Reactor.

Your help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Adam

 

[adamjr]

Anyone have suggestions for improvements or mods to your chosen design to make it better?

Adam

 

[yznhmr]

he could also produce things like larger fluidised reactors for the phos removers and for carbon maybe a triple pack carbon, phos and kalk, all built into a nice asthetic row, and a calcium duel chmb... the all inclusive reef starter pak, //

 

[adamjr]

That's a pretty cool idea. How would you plumb that three in one? The Kalk requires it's own pump for recirculation. So would you have a feed line that splits off three ways to each chamber and a valve to control the input to the kalk chamber?

Kind of like the old Rainbow/Lifeguard mechanical units but transparent instead?

Adam

 

[little_squid]

imo the best skimmer is one fed by the mains returns with a good recirculation needle wheel pump. most recirulation skimmers ive seen are fed by a smaller pump not direct from the overflows. so make one to handle 500gph flow thru with a good needlewheel and your nextgeneration imo

i made one and was shocked at skimmate

 

[mhurley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7752884#post7752884 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by yznhmr
he could also produce things like larger fluidised reactors for the phos removers and for carbon maybe a triple pack carbon, phos and kalk, all built into a nice asthetic row, and a calcium duel chmb... the all inclusive reef starter pak, //

You mean something like this?

Geo made that for me and has made a few others. It's just phosban and carbon at the moment.

You couldn't do kalk through something like this though..

Ok...sorry for the hijack...Carry on...

 

[adamjr]

Not a hijack at all. It's exactly on topic.

Thanks for the pick Mike.

Squid:

I think I get what you are suggesting so let me just ask this for clarification to see if I understood what you meant.

Do you mean that the input of the skimmer should be tapped off of the pump output from your sump to the tank?

Adam

 

[little_squid]

picture your tanks overflows as most have dumping over a drip plate onto a bio-ball chamber! reefs dont need bio balls and dont use them so instead of having the main tanks returns dumping water into this chamber you have the overflows dumping right into your skimmers main chamber your trapping all waste from the tank right into a mix of air and force it up instead of hoping the waste is going to make it thru the bioball chamber and might get sucked in by the pump for skimming or it will rott at the bottom of your sump! it makes a huge differance on skimming!

now here a thought for what i say older skimmers lol euro-reefs/asm/aqua c what i thought would work is if you hade a attachment say 4" diameter @ x ft and attached this to you skimmer input on the pump then you could have your tanks overflows dump raw water into the 4" tube for the pump to have a much better chance to skim. you would have to have a few holes at the bottom so the larger pumps could get enough water but it would still force clean the water per say

hope that makes sence long tired day

 

[DgenR8]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7769112#post7769112 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by little_squid
picture your tanks overflows as most have dumping over a drip plate onto a bio-ball chamber! reefs dont need bio balls and dont use them so instead of having the main tanks returns dumping water into this chamber you have the overflows dumping right into your skimmers main chamber your trapping all waste from the tank right into a mix of air and force it up instead of hoping the waste is going to make it thru the bioball chamber and might get sucked in by the pump for skimming or it will rott at the bottom of your sump! it makes a huge differance on skimming!

now here a thought for what i say older skimmers lol euro-reefs/asm/aqua c what i thought would work is if you hade a attachment say 4" diameter @ x ft and attached this to you skimmer input on the pump then you could have your tanks overflows dump raw water into the 4" tube for the pump to have a much better chance to skim. you would have to have a few holes at the bottom so the larger pumps could get enough water but it would still force clean the water per say

hope that makes sence long tired day

The only thing I don't like about that idea is that if you slow the flow draining from your tank, Murphy will step in and cause it to one way or another, flood your tank.

 

[little_squid]

how so?? if the tank is drilled this wont happen the weight of the water will force it down into the skimmer no doubts! now i have a twin tube overflow and dropped the rate down to around 500 gph and used a 2" drain out of my skimmer and it works great! i just picked up a asm g4x to this setup so double skimming! i like alot of fish with corals why i did this

but without a doubt skimming raw water is a huge benifit imo

now what he could make is a sump with the skimmer built in so the overflows feed the skimmer and then the rest of the sump for macros or what nots

 

[little_squid]

i bet this will be the new skimmer set up in the near future for all tanks and most will find like i did having a 900-2000 gph flow from the sump to the tank is way more than needed! imo all you need is a few hundred gallons per hour and use that saved money on your return pump for some tunze streams ect..

 

[DgenR8]

You don't need a ton of flow from your sump to your main tank, and I agree that skimming "raw" water directly from your tank is the better way to go. The problem I see is with restricting the flow from the tank to the sump in any way. Once you put any kind of restriction on the drain(s) it's only a matter of time before the pump is moving water up faster than it can come back down.

 

[BreadmanMike]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7791806#post7791806 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DgenR8
You don't need a ton of flow from your sump to your main tank, and I agree that skimming "raw" water directly from your tank is the better way to go. The problem I see is with restricting the flow from the tank to the sump in any way. Once you put any kind of restriction on the drain(s) it's only a matter of time before the pump is moving water up faster than it can come back down.

Agreed, but you can plumb the line to the skimmer with a T. This way water has a way to escape if necessary. I have my Deltec plumbed this way and it hasn't failed me yet. *knocks on wood*

 

[mbierzyc]

i'm setting up a sump soon and i want to see if i can make this work. i plan to drill the tank with a single 1" pvc pipe (the tank is 48gal). i have an aqua c ev120 skimmer. what would i need to do in order to implement the return to the skimmer? i'm new to all of this, but this idea would save me from buying a pump for my skimmer.

thanks for the help

 

[adamjr]

With an EV 120 you have to have a pump. For this skimmer to work you have to have 500 gallons per hour coming into the skimmer and unless you have some hellacious pressure coming from your drain line from the tank you just won't have the flow you need without a pump.

Adam

 

[little_squid]

the best way to feed you ev skimmer is to place the pump in a buckett and have your overflows drain into it so it can catch as much raw water as you can! or what i wrote before use a 4" pvc tube attach the inlet on the pump to the pvc! have the returns dump into the pvc then the pump is getting raw water leave the bottom of the pvc open or cut a few holes in the bottom due to the pump will suck more water than the return feeds into the pvc

pretty simple