The Life Reef Skimmer Club

Anybody with a Kill-A-Watt running a Mag 12 or Fluval SP4 on an SVS-24 and standard venturi? I'm curious as to the actual wattage draw using an AC pump. From reading, it seems as if AC pumps running under pressure through the venturi will run a fair amount below their actual maximum rated wattage whereas DC pumps will run at or very close to their maximum rated wattage.
 
If I remember correctly, Jeff from Lifereef says it isn't necessary to keep the neck clean for good skimming. Do people agree with this?

I have the SVS 2-24 on a 60 gallon system (a bit large - but I have LPS and I feed a lot), and I cannot seems to get anything except a lot of gunk in the neck, or mostly water in the cup (very light skimmate).

Any suggestions would be great.

BTW, I run the recommended Mag 9.5
 
^ Same. I think it might be that we don't have enough fish for it to work correctly. Every so often it skims up to the top but nothing is like boiling over like I see others
 
2000se said:
^ Same. I think it might be that we don't have enough fish for it to work correctly. Every so often it skims up to the top but nothing is like boiling over like I see others
Click to expand...

This may be the case, but here is what I have:

2 hooded fairy wrasse
2 firefish
Royal gramma
Tanaka's Pygmy wrasse
Pink streaked wrasse
Tailpsot blenny
2 ocellaris clowns
Randall's goby

I also feed Reef Chili every day and does Aquavitro Fuel 2x a week.

I know my tank is small compared to what the skimmer is rated for, but this would seem to be a lot of stuff to skim out! I use a mesh filter sock that only gets out really big stuff, as when I was using felt the skimming action was even worse.
 
not too bad a load but still I don't think enough to make this skimmer produce all the time. At least in my opinion
 
I find my 30" seems to skim better when the neck is reasonably clean. So, I clean the neck and cup weekly with an acrylic cleaning pad and tap water.
 
Falcon53 said:
If I remember correctly, Jeff from Lifereef says it isn't necessary to keep the neck clean for good skimming. Do people agree with this?

I have the SVS 2-24 on a 60 gallon system (a bit large - but I have LPS and I feed a lot), and I cannot seems to get anything except a lot of gunk in the neck, or mostly water in the cup (very light skimmate).

Any suggestions would be great.

BTW, I run the recommended Mag 9.5
Click to expand...

I believe he's talking about the the body of the skimmer not the neck. The neck will be optimal when not coated with sludge.
 
I remember talking to Jeff about the issue and he strongly advised me not to use any sort of neck cleaner, he said the his skimmers perform optimally when the neck is dirty and in fact dirtier the better. He even told me not to manually wipe or clean the thick gunk when empty the cup. Those build up are good for the performance as he said which to me is quite counter intuitive.
 
africangrey said:
I remember talking to Jeff about the issue and he strongly advised me not to use any sort of neck cleaner, he said the his skimmers perform optimally when the neck is dirty and in fact dirtier the better. He even told me not to manually wipe or clean the thick gunk when empty the cup. Those build up are good for the performance as he said which to me is quite counter intuitive.
Click to expand...

I clean the gunk and still get great performance.
 
Does anyone know the purpose of the ball and spring in the venturi ? I took it out and the SCFH went up about 5. Does it harm anything taking it out ?
 
Yep take it out. It's a check valve as you normally don't want fluid going back that way. Make sure to keep the airline higher then the waterline.

Another thing I did that helped increase air draw a little more was remove the barb and oring. Not sure if its the same size on the 1" mazzei but I got this idea from ca1ore. Use a 1/2" to 3/8" bushing and then a 1/2" female thread barb fitting. Then use 1/2" tubing.

Can kind of see it here.
80116db746ae3f33661f5191cb42fba9.jpg
 
Another thing I did that helped increase air draw a little more was remove the barb and oring. Not sure if its the same size on the 1" mazzei but I got this idea from ca1ore. Use a 1/2" to 3/8" bushing and then a 1/2" female thread barb fitting. Then use 1/2" tubing.

Jason Can you elaborate on this more, is the mod done on the mazzei injector itself? I have a 1074 mazzei that came with a 1/2" barb fitting, was able to accept a thin wall silicon tubing.
mazzei 1074.jpg
 
africangrey said:
Another thing I did that helped increase air draw a little more was remove the barb and oring. Not sure if its the same size on the 1" mazzei but I got this idea from ca1ore. Use a 1/2" to 3/8" bushing and then a 1/2" female thread barb fitting. Then use 1/2" tubing.

Jason Can you elaborate on this more, is the mod done on the mazzei injector itself? I have a 1074 mazzei that came with a 1/2" barb fitting, was able to accept a thin wall silicon tubing.
View attachment 371559
Click to expand...

Then you're set. Just take out the spring and ball. Yes, it's on the mazzei injector itself. You could probably go from 1/2" then to a bigger tubing if wanted as it looks like it's a 3/4" threading. You could get a female 3/4" threaded barb fitting.
 
But we are still limited by the npt to barb fitting on the collection cup unless we tap a bigger hole for 3/4" npt and the little hole on top of lid is also the limiting factor unless we enlarge it. The lid is made of thicker material and much heavier so the amount of air enter under the groove would be limited.
 
I'm about to turn my SVS-24 with Mazzei upgrade off. I can't get this thing to skim right at all. I've had it running for about 3 months now. All it does is just bubble..
I've even removed the check valve in the venture to allow more air draw. I am currently running a syncra silent 3.0 on it with 1 inch piping.

Who knows... It might be my bio-load as I am running it on a reefer-250. I've got several small SPS frags and 3 fish. 1x Clown + 1x flameback angle + a flasher wrasse.. all about 3 inches long.

Honestly I'm tired of messing with it. I adjust column up a bit and just seems to spit clear water into collection cup /// adjust the column down and it never produces skim. Just collects around the neck.

I don't know.. guess I'm asking for advice on this.
 
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