Looking for precise air valve for sensitive skimmer

[gcarroll]

Josh I will make it a point to get out there. What city are you in?

As for questions regarding my EV1000. The EV1000 was originally designed to run on a Mag 24. The skimmer is 2” shorter than a standard EV1000. The tower was the standard height as a normal EV1000 except Jason incorporated a tapered down cone since I would be using a smaller than recommended pump.

The 2” was taken from the height of the collection cup. I was not happy with the bubble size with the Mag 24 so I upgraded to the Mag 36. The Mag 36 is recommended for the EV2000. Since I then replaced the injector of the Mag 36 with the 1” injector of my EV400 because nothing I did could stop the skimmer from overflowing. The EV400 injector is much smaller than the EV1000 injector allowing a higher-pressure spray but less water volume than the EV1000 injector. This combination gave me a much smaller bubble size and as long as the gate valve is open all the way and the air valves are closed it does not overflow. I recently made the change back to the standard tower since I no longer need the efficiency of the cone. I now can close the gate valve a little more making the bubble size even more desirable.

 

[Fmellish]

I'm in Mission Viejo. Where the 241 Toll road crosses over El Toro Road.

Basically, take the 5 fwy South to El Toro Road, take El Toro Road east 7 miles, and there I am.

It's not urgent by any means. I like the new air valve and I like the skimmate I'm getting. It would just be interesting to hear your take on my config.

When/if the time comes just PM me and I'll give you directions anda phone #.

Cheers
Josh

 

[gcarroll]

Will do Josh. It will probably be after my vacation (end of August) I'm in OC most every weekend anyway since all of my wife's an my families are in OC.

 

[Fmellish]

Status update:

My Dwyer air valve/meter was working well until yesterday when the bead stopped reading a real value. The bead was just stuck in the middle, and didn't move regardless of the incoming air flow. I looked closely and saw that the channel the bead lies in was brown and wet. It appears that over several days of taking in high-humidity air the interior of the meter had become cloged with wet gunk.

For this reason I cannot recommend the Dwyer air valve. It simply isn't a suitable product for metering high humidity air. Any condensation kills this thing. I reverted back to using my old air valve. I realize I can clean the Dwyer, but it's performance does not warrant weekly cleanings. It's not the easiest thing to take apart.

In other skimmer related news:
I had been thinking about my skimmer, and all the different configurations I have tried, and I decided that safe and consistent is more important to me than lots of skimmate but with unpredictable output. I was tired of coming home from work some days to find my tank down 1.5 liters of water because the skimmer had filled the waste collection container. And I was tired of coming home some days to find the bubbles weren't even rising the neck.

So last night I returned the skimmer to it's original operating configuration, (almost). I now have the 1262 hitting a "Y", one end of the Y goes to the skimmer, and the other to a gate valve. I can now bleed off the extra flow and return it to my sump by opening the gate valve. This allows me to return the water's position in the skimmer back down to a safe level where it should be, (at the platform). This is also better than my original configuration in that before I just had an inline valve. I could control the flow to the skimmer, but it put backpressure on the pump. Now there is no backpressure. The "Y" allows me to just bleed off extra flow. I can also open the airvalve back up now without blasting the top of my skimmer off.

I'm sorry Greg, I just couldn't get this thing to work safely when "overdriving" it. I'll update my site later with pics. The new config is better anyway because I have a nice gate valve that will let me give the skimmer as much juice as I want. I can always run it fully closed to give the skimmer all of the flow if I ever want to attempt overdriving it again.

In other non-skimmer news:
I purchased a Derasa Clam. 5" across at his base. He seems healthy. I tried to inspect his mantle the best I could when I bought him. I gave him a long drip acclimation and scrubbed his shell in case there were any undesireable snails or worms. He looks fantastic and is quite happy on my sand bed. I'm new to clams, so I'll be spending a lot of time on the clamsdirect forums now. He is very cool. And the Derasa clam is supposed to be a hardy low maintenance clam. We'll see.

Cheers
Josh

 

[BONDQ]

Alright a Gate Valve! Glad to hear that's working, I knew it would give you better tuning ability.

The clam sounds fun, be sure it gets the appropriate light and give it some DTs every now and then.

 

[Fmellish]

I know some people can use the 1262 without a valve, but I cannot. it's just too much water.

Josh