Our Mini 425 Ocean

[erics3000]

Dudester - I will look at different solutions down the road. I just want to get my tank stable so I can start getting some corals.

Bax - I looked at the recirc skimmers and I think they had 2 bulkheads. 1 for the pump Intake and 1 for the water from the tank? I am not sure about it though. What is the advantage if I run it recirc instead of the regular way?

I am assuming the regular way is the pump injects the water into the intake between the 2 injectors and the water is drained out the big gate valve. I hope that is right. I gathered some plumbing parts so I can hook it up this way.

If the recirc is a lot better I already have a couple 1 1/2 bulk heads. Here is the pic of how I would install it the standard way.

 

[Lunchbucket]

WOW that is BIG! Get it up and running

Lunchbucket

 

[Bax]

Your's has the extention, I would like to get that. The advantage of running the recirc is dwell time. All the skimmer geeks rave about dwell time. The MR4 skimmer is BIG you are now a skimmer geek , like it or not!

DRILL IT!

If you do, I'll drill mine for the Dart or Cuda, right now it only has a 1' BH & I use a Pan World PX200 at over 320 watts!!!!

 

[erics3000]

Bax - Deal ..So I need to drill 2 holes. A 1 1/2 at the top of the box so overflo water can enter. The second 1 1/2 hole on the side to feed the pump. The return on the pump will go to the pipe between the becketts. The existing gate valve will drain back into the sump. Does that sound right??

 

[Bax]

That's about it.

The box on mine has a 3/4" inlet to feed the skimmer, not 1 1/2", You'll need a BV on that to isolate it anyway for maint, so I don't think it could hurt, but it may not be worth the chance you'll take to enlarge that inlet hole.

As for the recirc, that's exactly right, add a BH to feed the pump and the return goes to the becketts just like the original set up.

With your pressure rated Marlin, and that body extension, that skimmer will be beastly! Now that I am agreeing with you to drill mine, I'am going to try to run one of my Darts on it. There's another mod you can do to the becketts that is supposed to improve the performance when run with a non-pressure rated pump. There's a long thread here about it, I'll have to catch up in it and I'll get you the link.

If you look closely at the cup in the pic you can see the mud I was pulling out of the rock. That plus up to 2 gallons of tea a day, at least in the beginning, it did finally calm down. The PanWorld PX 200 pulls about 320 watts though, so I am very eager to see a Dart or Cuda on mine, saving 50 to 200 watts and all the heat is a good thing!

 

[chrismhaase]

1 1/2" is way to big. You want to have about a 3/4" like Bax said. Basically what you are doing is sucking water in one hole and putting it back in through the other hole giving you more contact time in the skimmer and really mixing up more bubbles and matter in the water, thus making your skimmer much more efficient.


Here is a picture

Make Sense? You see the recir pump on the left and it draws water from the bottom and then redirects it on the upper bulkhead.

 

[erics3000]

Bax and Chrismhaase......
Great thanks for the info. I will drill a 1' at the top since 2 of my returns are 1' to feed the skimmer.

On the side where the pump inlet I guess I need to go 1 1/2 because the intake port on the marlin is 1 1/2.

Thanks again for all the advice and info. I am of to work..Hopefully I can make some progress to night.

 

[chrismhaase]

Why don't you just use a reducer?? You will add a little more force and hopefully shake up the water some more. Post a picture of your skimmer so it is easier for us to work with and talk about.

Thanks.

 

[erics3000]

we had a crazy couple days over here. This week we had a lot of fires around the neighborhood. We had to evacuate yesterday and my house loss power last night. I had to stay at the inlaws. When I checked on the tank this morning the water drained back to the sump about 3 inch out from the display. No spills yeah. oh yeah no burnt down house double yeah...All my fish seamed to be ok. I don't have a lot of corals so things seamed fine. I went back to my house again after work and fired up the generator and let the tank run for a couple hours to get some oxygen in there. I just heard my house has power again from a neighbor of mine. I plugged the pumps back in before I left this evening in case the power came back on. Hopefully tomorrow everything will be ok tomorrow.

Hopefully this week I will get the skimmer hooked up. I think I will just start off with the standard installation and see how it goes. I will have unions on the plumbing so I can switch to recirc mode easy.

Chrismhaase- I will get a bunch of detailed pics when I get back and update my plumbing diagram soon.

Bax - if you do drill yours, I saw something on the MRC CLub thread about putting a 90 on the inside bulkhead to help it out. i guess it is the same theory on other skimmers

 

[tbittner]

Great to hear that you, your family, your house and tank came through the threat of fire unscathed!

 

[tbittner]

Chrismhaase, how do you avoid SERIOUS cavitation with a setup like that? I would imagine that there would be a lot of bubbles being sucked into that pump.

(ok, I'll head back to the corner and shut up, read, and learn now. )

 

[jnarowe]

Wow Eric, glad your place is OK.

 

[Bax]

Glad to hear all are OK, fire, anywhere but a fireplace is a scary thing!

Yeah, there's an L on the 1" now. I thought I had a 2" BH, but I can't find it so I'll have to do a Savco order. Of course, I have every other size in triplicate.

 

[tattooreef]

wow eric i do hate to hear about all that crap i will keep my fingers crossed for you and hope that none of that happens to your home and that none of the outages hurt you system( thats why i run battery backups) also i know you wanted to know when i started a thread for the new setup, it is in the large tan forum, under tattoo studio 240 365 total system , or something to that effect

 

[erics3000]

Thanks everyone for you concerns. Looks like we were one of the lucky ones. It was pretty close in 2 directions. There is some ash on my front and back lawn. They have the most part of the fires under controll.

I brought the fam home this morning before I went to work.The power is back on for now it came back on last night and has been steady. It has been on and off for the last few days. I had 2 battery ups that died over the week. One running a power head and the other a little air pump. I came to house a few times and changed out the socks and ran the return pump for a couple hours off a generator. Everything seams to be fine except for 1 loss. The little gold rim tang didn't make it.

It will be nice to be back home tonight.

 

[jnarowe]

dammit. such a sweet fish too. sounds like you dodged the worst of it though!

 

[zoanthidtoxins]

Justwanted to sya I really enjoyed this thread.

 

[chrismhaase]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12534627#post12534627 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tbittner
Chrismhaase, how do you avoid SERIOUS cavitation with a setup like that? I would imagine that there would be a lot of bubbles being sucked into that pump.

(ok, I'll head back to the corner and shut up, read, and learn now. )

No problem at all thankfully.

 

[erics3000]

J - Thanks..It still hurts I just saw a Flame Angel in lfs and almost got him. I loss 2 fish that night stuck to the overflow and then after the fires I could not find the copperband and my gold rim was dead...

zoanthidtoxins - Thanks...I am starting to see the light in the tunnel not including last week…


I finally got around to talking to MRC. I spoke with Tim. I am going to set the skimmer up standard for now and go from there. I had a question about the drain from the skimmer on height to the sump. It is recommended to have the skimmer on a stand so the drain doesn’t not have any back pressure. The one bad thing about this skimmer is there is a glued 90 on the outlet of the gate valve, and it is pointing up. I will run it this way for now but it I have trouble I will buy a new gate valve and run the plumbing the proper way. It should not be a lot of back pressure but I have heard these are a little tough to tune.

I did get a little done this weekend. I redid the aquascape for the middle rocks. It came out ok. I think I am finally done with aquascaping. I need to double check my parameters again. My fuge has been up for the last couple of weeks not connected to the system. I need to do some testing so I can connect to the main systems. I will get some pics and updates soon.

 

[Bax]

Eric

They HATE back pressure! Definitly try it and change as needed.

Really glad you and your family came out of the fires OK, the tank will recover.