Testing of a sequence 3200 needle wheel

[dgasmd]

Well, after months of planning and getting things together, it seems as it finally happened. I must say the inspiration to this was Spazz and Bill Wann. These guys make it all look so simple one actually feel retarded when it does not work out the first time:lol:

I actually have 2 versions of the build as the first did not work out as well as expected.

VERSION1

The skimmer to start the testing is a custom made GEO skimmer. GEO originally built this skimmer for me at my own specifications to use with air stones. That is the wa it had been running for months now, but the results were a little disappointing to say the least. The bubbles being generated by the ceramic airstones I got from Aquatic Ecosystems were huge to say the least. After months of tweeking air and water ratios, feed, etc. I got nowhere and looked for something else. The skimmer has a box base measuring 12"x12"x16". The body is 12" diameter and sits another 60" above the box. The neck is 8" diameter, 12" long, and has a wet neck to it. The feed is from a GenX70. I fed the skimmer air with a Sweetwater Linear II Air Pump SL-94 (90 running watts). The needle wheel pump used is a Sequence 750 series 3200 that I had laying around. The needle wheel was built by Spazz.
First I had to clean the skimmer well as this is how it looked:

This is what it looked like after tedious hours of plumbing, measuring, fitting, theorizing, etc.

One week later, this is the head of foam I was able to get out of it:

But why??????
Well, the reason can be many. To be honest, I don't know which it is specifically. I do have several ideas, and to be even more honest I guess I will never know which one was the right one. The reason is I varied quite a few things at the same time to try to improve the design, so I'll never know if it was a single thing or the combination of things altogether. Regardless, it is VERSION 2 that is working well now.

 

[dgasmd]

VERSION 2

VERSION 2

The main problem I was having with version 1 was an incredible amount of turbulance inside that made the entire thing look like a volcano errupting. There were tons of huge bubbles being burped out by the pump causing the turbulence. The smaller bubbles were small, but not tiny.

Since version 1 did not work out well, I turned to Spazz for some ideas and criticism. He suggested I take out the union valve at the output of the valve as it was increasing the distance from the pump's outlet to the skimmer quite a bit. Although he had told me this several times before, I did it this way anyway in order t see if I could leave the valve there to make it easier to remove the pump without having to drain the entire skimmer. The other suggestion he had was to try to cut the distance from the pump's outlet to the skimmer intake as much as possible. He also suggested to move the venturi back away from the pump to see if the increase distance would allow the air and water to mix better. Not only did I do that, but I also did a few other things that I think improved everything considerably.

Here is the replumb. I cut the 2 ends of a union in half and used a small threaded nipple to go into the bulkhead. Then, the pump's outlet was attached. This is as close as one can get that outlet:

This is what the bubbles were like after it was tuned, which by the way, took forever too. This thing is so touchy that little changes in water or air volume make a huge different in consistance.

This is the final replumb of it. You can see I made the skimmer feed pump plumbed at the bottom rather than the top as it originally was as a counter current skimmer.

The white elbow directs need feed water to the skimmer's intake to mix with recirculated water.

This is 10 min. after starting everything and playing with the air and water intake some.

This is within 20 min of things running.

*I must say that I have to give credit to a lot of people for this proyect. The first one goes out to the guy that time after time spent hours here helping me to do it all. Without his help, reefarchitect (Armando), I would have never finished or even started something like this. I seriously owe the guy in a big way. Also thanks go out to Spazz for doing the needle wheel for me and for helping me out on this project. The advice was priceless.
**There are a few downfalls to this skimmer, and those are based on design and pump's design. The 750 or 1000 series pumps are not the best pumps for something like. I have to agree with Spazz that the Dart is probably the way to go. The volute design is so much better for this purpose and the pump is so much litghter too. Less wattage too, although I am right under 150 watt between the air pump and the sequence pump.
***I have received a Sequence Dart needle wheel pump with the Sequence designed needle wheel in it. I want to run my current pump on this skimmer since I finally got it running for about 2-3 weeks and see how it performs. Then, I will put in the Sequence Dart needle and see how the compare.

 

[reefarchitect]

Nice,

Cant wait to see what its produced in a week.

PS, thanks for not posting the pic :rollface: :rollface:

 

[ChemE]

Wow, those are some seriously tiny bubbles. I'll be following this thread for sure to see how things turn out.

 

[biggt 2k1]

Now all you need to do is to have spazz or someone else make you a funnel for the body to neck transition. Great work there Alberto, and Spazz.

 

[dgasmd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7494816#post7494816 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by biggt 2k1
Now all you need to do is to have spazz or someone else make you a funnel for the body to neck transition. Great work there Alberto, and Spazz.

It is already done. I just haven't installed it. I want to run it without it and then with it to compare too how much of a realistic difference is there between the 2. I just may install it after I test the Sequence made needle wheel. That way I can objectively compare the 2 without other confounding factors.

There are some serious short comings to usin these types of pumps for what I can see already.

1. The volute in these pumps are not designed for this, so they have very narrow and weird shapes to their outlets. I wished they were just round and 1.5"-2" diameter instead of the weird D shaped outlets that are actually narrower than 1". Part of the improvements to version 2 was to shave these outlets some to make them more round and wider. There is only so much room you ahve to work with there. The Dart has a better outlet when it comes to it, but still marrow for these purposes.

2. These larger skimmers require that you pump air in because the head pressure of the water will not allow them to draw in any air. These air pumps run very hot and the air they pump in is very hot too. That is like adding heat to the skimmer's water!

3. Because one uses an air pump to push the air in, one is tempted to get more and more in. Bigger pump and more air:lol: :lol: That makes the tweeking to get it right extremely difficult as a little hair turn on the air may make the difference between a completely turbulence free skimmer and a small home volcano. My air pump is currently bleeding off some pressure and air as it is too much for the single needle wheel pump. Everytime I walk into the garage I have the sudden urge to increase the air. However, it is like frothy milk in there.

4. Water quality to begin with makes a huge difference in performance. I think my water quality is actually pretty good to begin with, so I don't expect to get 5g of tar looking skimmate per day.

5. It is one of a kind. That means tweeking, messing with stuff, custom making parts and pieces, waiting for manufacturers, etc. It can get very tedious and aggravating if you are not one of those people that are willing to deal with it. If you want set it and forget it from a box with a brand name to brag about, this is certainly not the item.

There is no question that for the amount of power used and the amount of air this thing is processing, there is nothing int he market today that compares to it. Simply nothing. I have seen larger BK, RK2, multi becket skimmers, and Deltecs work at their peak performance and I can honestly say that neither can even remotely compare. The final thing I wish I had now is some form of measuring the air intake or exhaust to figure out what volume of air per min. I am using.

 

[dgasmd]

By the way, since Bill Wann and Energy got to name teir skimmers, I guess I should too.

I shall call it GARGANTULOUS :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Roland Jacques]

got to love that NW mod. Good job with all the details.

can you tell us how do you like your wet neck? it seems hard to get much performance info on them.

 

[Beenalongtime79]

I knew you were up to no good Alberto!!! Haha

 

[dgasmd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7495008#post7495008 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by yourfishman
can you tell us how do you like your wet neck? it seems hard to get much performance info on them.

The performance info on them is lacking as there are not that many people that run them or get them to run properly. I have tried just about everything I can think of to run it consistantly in the airstone version of gargantulous (love the sound of that:lol: :lol: ) and could never get it to work well. If I used it as a "flush" device instead, it seem to do some good. What I would do is manually turn it on for about 5 min. and the water running down the walls would make the foam in the neck overflow well. So much, that it would rinse out the entire collection cup well. I just put it on X-10 with my ACII now to come on every 6 hours for 5 min. It is currently being fed by a MJ1200, but it is clearly not as much water as I would like. It is doing a very good job at rinsing the cup and riser though. We'll see how it performs long term.

 

[Horace]

Well lets all hope that sequence makes the dart with the needle wheel already in there. Then more folks will likely take on this project.

 

[dgasmd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7495358#post7495358 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Horace
Well lets all hope that sequence makes the dart with the needle wheel already in there. Then more folks will likely take on this project.

My best guess is they will ahve the version of the Dart with the NW in it and then they will also sell the NW by themselves for retro fitting. Retro fitting one of these NW already made to a dart should be as easy as it gets since they would probably come with the seal slot already pre-made. If I can do it, then I can honestly say anyone can. This is all speculation only as I really don't know any more info on that than anyone else.

 

[smjtkj]

It looks like it is going to do well. I am happy I saw this thread before I plumbed the pump to the box on my skimmer. I was going to put a ball valve on mine too. Not any more! I wonder if there is a way to retro fit a diffusor to your skimmer? I am really sold on the idea of a diffusor plate after seeing what Bill's did for turbulence. The only thing you have to combat turbulence now is the height of the chamber which is great by the way. I think if there was a diffusor plate you could actually add more air without causing an erruption. You could build a chamber out of 10 inch acrylic, or maybe 9 inch and just extend your pump outlet into it. Just a thought...
Mike

 

[dgasmd]

The diffuser would help some, but I have to wonder at this point by how much really. The top of the water where the bubbles break is dead on right now. There is some swirling inside the collum, but not much really. Retro fitting a diffuser plate shouldn't be too hard and I already had something in mind actually. That would certainly be the last thing to be added. I don't think doing it would allow me to increase the volume of air at the pump as it has nothing to do with the turbulence in the chamber though. Actually, the other way around.

 

[smjtkj]

I have a feeling that the swirling would go away with the diffusor.
But if the foam is is dead on, I guess there is no need. Congrats!

 

[Travis]

Looks great! Only problem I see is there is no place for the bubbles to settle out of the water before getting sucked back into the recirculation pump. A lot of bubbles will get sucked in and re-shredded, releasing the proteins they have captured back into the water again. How much this would decrease efficiency I'm not sure, probably not much. I think a diffuser section would help in this aspect as all of the water from the recirc pump would be forced into the diffuser and up into the skimmer body instead of shooting into the same section as the recirc intake. Then maybe more of the bubbles will settle out before the water gets sucked up into the recirc pump again. I don't know, just thinking out loud. It looks like that skimmer is a beast the way it is.

 

[Travis]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7495358#post7495358 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Horace
Well lets all hope that sequence makes the dart with the needle wheel already in there. Then more folks will likely take on this project.

Not sure if they plan to sell the Dart with the needlewheel or if the needlewhell will be sold separately. But they are finished with their needlewheel. I saw it at IMAC. I think it will be available for retail in July, IIRC.

 

[dgasmd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7496765#post7496765 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Travis
Looks great! Only problem I see is there is no place for the bubbles to settle out of the water before getting sucked back into the recirculation pump. A lot of bubbles will get sucked in and re-shredded, releasing the proteins they have captured back into the water again.

Travis:

It is hard to tell from the pictures alone, but the water in the box is actually free of bubbles pretty much. Sure, ther eis a tiny little bit that gets in but I seriously doubt it does anything one is able to quantitate. This happens with ALL recirculating skimmers by the way whether it is a BK, deltec, RK2, etc. There is no way to make the water at the bottom 100% free of any tiny bubbles. But again, I seriously doubt (and this is a best guess) that it makes any difference one can measure.'

I do plan to put a diffuser plate at some point, but it will certainly be the last thing that gets done after I get done testing the Sequence Dart NW.

I am surprised to hear they had them at IMAC and announced their release as I was under the impression they were pretty much into testing still. Do you ahve any pictures of it? Can you describe it? I am not allowed to post or describe what it looks like in the one they sent me, but if they had one for the show that is free game I guess

 

[spazz]

well i hate to say it but the deffuser should be top priority for that skimmer. that should be the very first thing you add to it before you do anything else. the reason is that the bubbles will be sucked into the pump in large amounts. i think this is the reason you need to bleed off some of the air from your air pump.
the bubbles will be about 4" below the bottom of the output pipe in the box. and that is low enough to have a large quanity of bubbles being sucked into the pump. you almost need a clear veiwing pane in the side of the box so you can see what its doing in there.

im glad that the shorter output pipe did the trick for you. its not something you would ever think of unless you have seen it for yourself.

as far as your wet neck goes its not the best design. there very tough to make and get tuned in properly. if the skimmer is not sitting perfectly level the water will pour out one side and not the other.

the cone is going to make a huge difference in performance on tht skimmer. you wait and see.

 

[smjtkj]

Yep, that is what I was getting at.