My New Toy

[Schplitter]

This is my DIY Monster:

38" tall
29"X8" reaction chamber
4"X8" collection cup
DIY 8" to 3.5" cone
Sequence Orca/Dart Needle Wheel recirc
MJ 600 feed pump

This thing is freakishly quiet. The pump is not even humming. When I take the silencer off the ventury it sounds like a honda civic back firing. With the silencer it's whisper quiet. The hose to the ventury is 1/2" ID.

I hoocked it up and dialed it in yesterday and this morning I had 1.5L of nasty stuff in the cup. Granted, I have had no skimmer on the system for about 3 weeks but this is just crazy.

If I can get my hands on some 10" tube I will rebuild this thing with that and a 5" neck... It works just fine this way but I patched it too many times as I tried to do this with 3 rio 1700 which could not handle the head pressure.

If anyone is trying to do this don't use 1/8"wall tube. It's just not strong enough to take the pressure from the uniseals. Maybe I was not patient enough or the holes were too close together but I had several cracks...

Let me know what you think,

BK

 

[Schplitter]

I forgot to add that Mark at thereefstop.com hoocked me up once again. Great guy and personalized service as always. The guy even called me because my credit card was having issues and we figured it out...

Thank you Mark,

BK

 

[mjpelikan]

wow!

Hey if you have some time this weekend, I would like to drop off your stuff and check out your system.

 

[Schplitter]

Come on by. Any chance I could pick the trap up today? I need to get that tang out for Jeff.

 

[logiktest]

Hard to tell from the pic, are you using a union between the cone and collection cup?

 

[Nanook]

Looks great!

 

[Schplitter]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11731009#post11731009 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by logiktest
Hard to tell from the pic, are you using a union between the cone and collection cup?

It's a rubber union. The colection cup just stits in it and on top of the cone. Only need 1/2" of clearance to get the cup off.

Here is a link to a huge picture if that helps:

http://www.tmobilepictures.com/photos/photo33/c2/a4/764a8c1099c5.jpg?_

BK

 

[logiktest]

Yes that helped. Thank you. The cone looks perfect, would you mind sharing a little about how you formed it?

 

[kipher]

How did you make the cone?

 

[Schplitter]

I have to upload a few pictures to help with the cone explenation. Check back in in a day or two...

BK

 

[geoxman]

did you use the mat I gave you on this? I would like to see it in action!! Very nice work!

 

[zt444a]

Looks great! We need to see that nasty skimmate ...

 

[Schplitter]

I'm uploading pics form my camera phone to T-mobile. My camera went missing at the NY party so this will take a while.

Phil: I used the mesh you gave me on the (3) Rio 1700 pumps and it worked great. The pumps just could not handle the head pressure. The reaction chamber is 30" and I could only fill it to 20". If I could have pushed it up another 5 or 6" it would have been perfect. The bubbles with those pumps were about .33mm.

With the Orca/Dart NW I had to leave the water at 19" in the chamber so tha tit does not overflow. This thing creates a lot of bubbles...

BK

 

[Schplitter]

Skimmer Cone Jig

You have to drill holes into the acrylic sheet so that the screws can go through. I used 3/16" acrylic.

Place the acrylic in the form and tighten.
Heat in over for 10 min at 250F.
Tighten each screw 10 turns
Repeat until you have a cone

Leave this thing in the Jig until the whole thing is room temperature. Do not place into your fridge or freezer as it will create a haze on the acrylic.

The plate with the hole is the top and the one with the mushrom like thing is the bottom. I used 4 4" screws to tighten the whole thing as the acrylic was heated.

 

[Schplitter]

Worth every penny

38" BABAY YEAH IT"S THAT BIG ( someone had to)

Simple Ventury. Reduced the 2" PVC to 1.5". Drilled a hole in the middle. I did not get a picture of the gray pvc piece that's going tinto the 1.5" PVC but I cut it at a 45 degree angle and simply glued it in.

Skimmer Body. 8" acrylic tube. WHITE

Since this thing is white I had to do something. I cut a 1" piece out of it lenght wise and glued in some clear acrylic. It's perfect!!It was a pain to glue the clear acrylic in. I had to heat the clear acrylic and then place it in the body of the skimmer to bend it. This had to be done in about 2 seconds or the clear stuff was not going to form properly. I would not do this again. I got a awesome deal on the white tube and this was the only way to do it...

 

[Schplitter]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11734079#post11734079 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zt444a
Looks great! We need to see that nasty skimmate ...

How's this?

This was the neck after is was hoocked up for about 30 minutes:

 

[kipher]

Thanks for showing off your DIY skills. I had thought of building my own skimmer before but the cone is the one issue that really deterred me.

 

[logiktest]

Thank you for showing the cone jig.

 

[Schplitter]

Honestly the cone was one of the easy parts of this. People just overthink it. The hard part was figuring out what size pump to use. 3rd time was the charm.

BK