The Life Reef Skimmer Club

iced98lx said:
Hey thank you for the actual suggestion, I've always tried to skim as dry as possible, so I'll try a little wetter and see if that helps!
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I purchased a used vs3-30 off of a member on another forum. First off, really happy with it so far. I had what sounds like same problems you occurred. The barbed 90 degree that threads into the collection cup would fill up with gunk and plug the air draw to the Venturi. I ran mine a little wetter with good results so far. The bubbles that would make it to the top were very large with a dryer skim. When the bubble broke it would send the waist flying up high enough to get in the air line. The smaller bubbles seem to break and keep the skimmer shrapnel under control in my situation so far.
 
I'm running 24 inch body now .I want to upgrade to 36 body I'm also running the mazzi injector. so I'm going to have to run ext. so I want to run ext. pump. what size pump should I run. Thanks in advance.

Darrell
 
Well, I'm part of the "club" now I suppose :).

Picked up a SVS3-24 from another member to replace my Skimz, which was a good skimmer, I just got tired of not getting as dark a skimmate as I thought I should and fiddling with the pump speeds.

Anyway, here's a video of it running. Can anyone help me with getting the water level "right"? I'd appreciate any feedback.
 
Cabo2008 said:
Well, I'm part of the "club" now I suppose :).

Picked up a SVS3-24 from another member to replace my Skimz, which was a good skimmer, I just got tired of not getting as dark a skimmate as I thought I should and fiddling with the pump speeds.

Anyway, here's a video of it running. Can anyone help me with getting the water level "right"? I'd appreciate any feedback.
Click to expand...

It looks like the skimmer needs to break in and that can take up to 7 days. Once it breaks in you will have a foam head below the flange, I run my skimmer with the bottom of the foam head 1" below the flange. IMO if the foam head is more than that the skimmer will become unstable
 
azjohnny said:
It looks like the skimmer needs to break in and that can take up to 7 days. Once it breaks in you will have a foam head below the flange, I run my skimmer with the bottom of the foam head 1" below the flange. IMO if the foam head is more than that the skimmer will become unstable
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks for the info.
 
You will k ow you have it set right when the skimmate is almost black and smells like a baby diaper when you drain it. 2 words of advice

SET IT

FORGET IT

I guess IT doesn't count lol. I love my 36" skimmer
 
I changed the plumbing a little tO'Day so I think I ready to let it ride. Added an elbow to the output so it's flowing into the return pump chamber and brought the input in a little closer to the body of the skimmer to shrink the footprint a bit.
 
I just changed my pump to a panworld 100. I had drilled the sump for an external pump, and I NEEDED the extra 2 degrees lol. Heaters were on most of the day. Ridiculous.
 
I'm running the DC9000 and it has worked wonderfully.

Thanks to BillFW for the suggestion to run a little wetter, now I don't have clogging issues, which is excellent
 
iced98lx said:
I'm running the DC9000 and it has worked wonderfully.

Thanks to BillFW for the suggestion to run a little wetter, now I don't have clogging issues, which is excellent
Click to expand...

are you running it on a 30"?

I run my dc9000 on 30" body with the water line about 3" from the top exit into the collection cup. It's really stable and not as wet as it sounds for the people who run their waterline around the flange area. I think this might be something exclusively with dc pumps, not sure.
 
EvMiBo said:
are you running it on a 30"?

I run my dc9000 on 30" body with the water line about 3" from the top exit into the collection cup. It's really stable and not as wet as it sounds for the people who run their waterline around the flange area. I think this might be something exclusively with dc pumps, not sure.
Click to expand...

I run my VS3-36 about 1/2" below the flange. I have had the cup overflow a couple of times for no visible reason. I have blamed it on a spawning event
 
That is where I run my VS3-36 as well, except I'm pushing mine with an Iwaki MD40. Jeff recommends the Blue Line BL40HD-X which is essentially the same thing (Panworld, Blue Line, etc. Iwaki spin-offs). Mine freaks when I change the Pinky Pre-Filters we use. Other than that, it's very stable. I shut it off when changing the Pre-Filter now to avoid the mass foaming unless I want to kinda flush the uptake tube.
 
azjohnny said:
I run my VS3-36 about 1/2" below the flange. I have had the cup overflow a couple of times for no visible reason. I have blamed it on a spawning event
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Right, but my point was that I've only seen DC pump users keep their water levels as high as I am (again, 3" below the overflow into the collection cup). Your sig says you're using a Laguna, so that makes sense.

Fwiw I turn my dc9000 down to 5/6 when I replace my filter socks for 1-2 hrs. It would go insane and overflow if I didn't. Not really sure why this happens. Other than that the skimmer is always primed in. No spawning events here yet, one day!
 
EvMiBo said:
Right, but my point was that I've only seen DC pump users keep their water levels as high as I am (again, 3" below the overflow into the collection cup). Your sig says you're using a Laguna, so that makes sense.

Fwiw I turn my dc9000 down to 5/6 when I replace my filter socks for 1-2 hrs. It would go insane and overflow if I didn't. Not really sure why this happens. Other than that the skimmer is always primed in. No spawning events here yet, one day!
Click to expand...

I run my 30" in about the same place you do, maybe just a touch lower. I'm using a Mag 18 for the skimmer pump. I deliberately try to skim fairly wet, I've got ongoing issues with valonia and cyano, and I figure a little more nutrient removal can't hurt.

I have had a few overflows doing this, though. I also attribute this to some sort of spawning event.
 
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