Snails in my skimmer

[Capt_Cully]

My sump has become a Trochus nursery. Problem is, they crawl into the Venturi intake on my skimmer and get trapped in the needle wheel making a buzzing sound. It's a pain to have to pull the whole skimmer once a week and its irritating to listen too.

Can I put some mesh over the front of the Venturi withou affecting its performance or stressing the pump by creating resistance on the afferent side?

 

[Steve Canyon]

A general rule of thumb is to restrict flow on the output ONLY. So long as you are not restricting the intake, it's okay. If the screen on the intake is large enough to assure an unrestricted flow, you should be fine.

 

[magdelan]

In my opinion, any amount of screen or mesh that you put in the venturi will restrict it's performance. If you take the "area" of the opening to the venturi and subtract the physical "area" of the screen, I'd be willing to bet that you would be reducing your intake by at least 50 percent. Follow? What I mean by "physical area" is if you were to take the screen melt it and reform it in to a solid flat object, now you can figure out the area of it.

 

[andrew2010]

make a box out of zip tied plastic canvas mesh (the craft stuff). make the box large enough to put your pump in. the mesh box will keep your snails out and not restrict your flow. you will have to clean the box occasionally I am sure. Just a thought..

 

[Capt_Cully]

all points made seem logical. Not sure why the nursery has opened down there, but free snails aren't a bad thing. The trouble makers are anywhere from 3-9mm diameter so keeping them out would require a fine screen which means more material for obstruction. I'd have to balloon it out pretty wide to reduce restriction.

Short answer: don't restrict afferent flow.

 

[SkiFletch]

Short answer: don't restrict afferent flow.

Yeah it's basically never a good idea. I like the thought of the mesh box around the whole thing though.

 

[EllieSuz]

I had literally hundreds of these little snails for a while. They'd be all over the glass overnight. Now, I'm hard pressed to find more than one or two. You might just wait it out and see if they disappear like mine did. My theory is that a subtle change in water conditions dictates their longevity in our systems, because I've had the same kind of population explosions in little brittle stars and pineapple sponges.

 

[tmz]

A big piece of pvc in a U drilled with lots of little holes works for my main pump very well without restricting flow. Mesh should be fine ; larger areas with small holes can be made to equal the same flow as smaller openings and stop junk from getting in.