Volcano club

[saleencobra]

jnarowe,it is more like an orangish brown but you are right it is far from the normal green color. I made a huge gfo reactor out of white pvc so I couldn't see inside it to see what was happening. Bulkreefsupply's small gfo was turning into dust and turned my tanks orange and to this day I still skim it out of the water.

I removed the wet neck yesterday and imo it is a big improvement. The wet neck was to close too the lid and too wide at the top for the foam to fall like it needed to.

 

[Sparkss]

crazzy
he was probably posting his answer while you were posting . But it appears that he doesn't have a Volcano.

yeniraki
I have tried tuning it manually, for some time now. That is not working w/ our skimmer, for whatever reason. Our next step is for me to break out the Kill-o-Watt meter and tune it that way. That was a long known and published method of tuning, and to my knowledge the only method advocated by Scott. It had worked for us in the past, I will post my results here once I have had the time to perform the steps on our skimmer.

 

[hahnmeister]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13493705#post13493705 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by yeniraki
I am sorry but I dont have kill-o-watt or another watt meter. I also dont have an air meter. I am tuning manually too but the increase in the air intake is so obvious, you wont be needing any of those.

Then stop right there.

I have been reading your comments about how 'skimmer masters' havent tried this or that... guess what... they have (or at least I have). I have vids of it in my photobucket... playing with the valves (air intake is wide open) with an air meter attached.

It may LOOK like an increase in air, but it isnt. Your perception of flow is not just of air, but water as well... just because you changed a valve until it LOOKS like its moving more air doesnt mean it really is... it could just be the waterflow, which does nothing. There are pumps out there that move 900gph with only 500lph of air, and will 'fill up a cylinder to make it look like PVC'... the problem is that its just alot of water flow blowing around a little bit of air. You can then have a 500gph pump that moves 1000lph, but because it does to with such little water flow, the 'perception' would be that its making less air because it doesnt fill up nearly as much of that same size cylinder... until you hook up an air meter and realize that its making more air.

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13493900#post13493900 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by saleencobra
I removed the wet neck yesterday and imo it is a big improvement. The wet neck was to close too the lid and too wide at the top for the foam to fall like it needed to.

That was why we removed ours also. The benefits from the wet neck itself were well outweighed by the impact it had at the top of the foam head due to the wide "shelf" it created at the top of the neck.

Glad to hear that removing it helped your performance

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

I have no idea what your last post means...similar and basically are good words for describing something, but they are not good words for physics.

I know you are trying to be helpful, but I don't think you understand what is actually happening with the volcano unless you see it in person. I wish someone actually lived close to me because then people could actually see what is happening and adjust valves and such.

I know there is unlocked potential, but how much time and livestock are you really willing to risk to get a skimmer that may never work. I am talking about the 1860 model now...the 2460 has been proven it can work. I have tried everything to this point that does not envolve modification. The next step would be to modify the bubble plate, venturi, and needle wheel. After those who knows.

 

[yeniraki]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13493848#post13493848 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by crazzy
Just an observation, Yeniraki, you were asked by Reefaquariumnut if you owned a Volcano.

Did not see that you answered that question.

Read my previous post.

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

And that looks like a volcano how?

 

[Herpervet]

First off let me say I mesh modded my pinwheel. I have had better results across the board after this change.
Not as good as I think it should be but better.

I must agree that one of the biggest issues is that adjusting the skimmer to perform optimally is not simple.
Scott did his best to explain things.
Yeniraki makes a point that Scott has explained but in a different way.

Yeniraki noted that by turning down the gate valve you increase air aspiration via the venturi effect.
Now my skimmer is alita fed but the effect is still present.

So I turned off my alita and noted that water backed up into the air line about 18" (no air was being aspirated) I then turned the gate valve down (to the right) until a very nice amout of air was being aspirated.

This MIGHT be a better way to adjust even the models that are being force fed.
Scott has always maintained (as has Energy) that bleeding off some air is necessary.

My skimmer never functioned as well when I bled off air despite my fiddling with a kill-a-watt.
Perhaps a better way to exectute this adjustment is to turn off the alita and slowly turn the gate valve until it aspirates. (and it aspirates alot of air btw!)

Then turn the alita back on back on with the bleed off valve open and SLOWLY increase the air input only as long as turbulance isn't building.

Just some thoughts.

 

[yeniraki]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13493934#post13493934 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hahnmeister
Then stop right there.

I have been reading your comments about how 'skimmer masters' havent tried this or that... guess what... they have (or at least I have). I have vids of it in my photobucket... playing with the valves (air intake is wide open) with an air meter attached.

It may LOOK like an increase in air, but it isnt. Your perception of flow is not just of air, but water as well... just because you changed a valve until it LOOKS like its moving more air doesnt mean it really is... it could just be the waterflow, which does nothing. There are pumps out there that move 900gph with only 500lph of air, and will 'fill up a cylinder to make it look like PVC'... the problem is that its just alot of water flow blowing around a little bit of air. You can then have a 500gph pump that moves 1000lph, but because it does to with such little water flow, the 'perception' would be that its making less air because it doesnt fill up nearly as much of that same size cylinder... until you hook up an air meter and realize that its making more air.

I have to open skimmers output valve all the way to decrease water level inside the skimmer and to prevent skimmer overflowing, as the amount of air inside skimmer increases alot when I slightly decrease the water input to the pump. I am decreasing the water level by 10" inside the skimmer to handle all the additional air. Do you think airmeter is necessary to asses such an increase?

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13493934#post13493934 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hahnmeister
Then stop right there.

I have been reading your comments about how 'skimmer masters' havent tried this or that... guess what... they have (or at least I have). I have vids of it in my photobucket... playing with the valves (air intake is wide open) with an air meter attached.

It may LOOK like an increase in air, but it isnt. Your perception of flow is not just of air, but water as well... just because you changed a valve until it LOOKS like its moving more air doesnt mean it really is... it could just be the waterflow, which does nothing. There are pumps out there that move 900gph with only 500lph of air, and will 'fill up a cylinder to make it look like PVC'... the problem is that its just alot of water flow blowing around a little bit of air. You can then have a 500gph pump that moves 1000lph, but because it does to with such little water flow, the 'perception' would be that its making less air because it doesnt fill up nearly as much of that same size cylinder... until you

I agree w/ just about everything you said. My question is how relevant is the air meter to a force fed skimmer (IE: using an alita) ? It would be nice to be able to tune it using the air flow as a guide, but I am not sure how that would play out once the alita is turned back on. Although Herpervet had an interesting idea about trying to tune it w/ the alita off then turning it back in to tune it further, although I am not sure how that differs from tuning it w/ just a kill-a-watt meter outside of getting a different starting point, but the end result should be the same, right ?

Any thoughts on that ?

Reefaquariumnut

It just seems to me that if the design works in the 2460 that there should be a way to "tune down" the 1860 to get it to work also. Although that may not be mechanically true.

I had thought that the NW and bubble plate were the best places to start also. I am not sure how much the venturi would make a difference on a forced air skimmer, but maybe I am just not looking at it right.

We were sent 2 bubble plates and are now using the one with fewer, larger holes. It seemed to work better than the one w/ more smaller holes. But now that we have the shorter body on ours maybe I need to swap it back to see if it helps w/ the turbulence (And performance).

 

[saleencobra]

36 hours after removing the wet neck and cleaning it.

 

[yeniraki]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13494150#post13494150 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Herpervet
First off let me say I mesh modded my pinwheel. I have had better results across the board after this change.
Not as good as I think it should be but better.

I must agree that one of the biggest issues is that adjusting the skimmer to perform optimally is not simple.
Scott did his best to explain things.
Yeniraki makes a point that Scott has explained but in a different way.

Yeniraki noted that by turning down the gate valve you increase air aspiration via the venturi effect.
Now my skimmer is alita fed but the effect is still present.

So I turned off my alita and noted that water backed up into the air line about 18" (no air was being aspirated) I then turned the gate valve down (to the right) until a very nice amout of air was being aspirated.

This MIGHT be a better way to adjust even the models that are being force fed.
Scott has always maintained (as has Energy) that bleeding off some air is necessary.

My skimmer never functioned as well when I bled off air despite my fiddling with a kill-a-watt.
Perhaps a better way to exectute this adjustment is to turn off the alita and slowly turn the gate valve until it aspirates. (and it aspirates alot of air btw!)

Then turn the alita back on back on with the bleed off valve open and SLOWLY increase the air input only as long as turbulance isn't building.



Just some thoughts.

Thank you..

 

[yeniraki]

Did any body try it without alita yet?

 

[Sparkss]

for which skimmer ?

For the 1860 w/o the alita it runs very anemic (and the pump draws massive amounts more power, which can eventually lead to overheating, not to mention higher utility bills).

 

[Nanook]

My skimmer is very similar to the Volcano but it was made by Geo It is 18" diameter by 60" total height, so equal to the 1860. I am force-feeding with the Alita 40 via 1/4" ID tubing right before the needlewheel with 3 layers of mesh mod.

My feed pump is an Iwaki 40 RLT, so that is 790gph pressure rated pump. My system is 1000 gallons of water. I am getting excellent skimmate now with this combination. I have went back and forth between the Alita 40 and Alita 80 and I don't see enough of a difference to justify the noise of the Alita 80. I am pulling a good amount of nasty skimmate each day and cleaning the skimmer twice a week.

Perhaps the feedpump is not enough gallons per hour for my system, but the combination is working as far as skimmate production.

 

[Volcano1]

Sparkss,
I posted before that the numbers I had before were starting at 108 on the Kil-A-Watt, this seemed at around were the pump cavitated, maybe a little lower. I went up to 125-126,I tried differant numbers below 125-126, but it didn't seem to stay stable.I have a valve on the recirc. pump, the feed pump, the return line, and the Alita 40, to regulate any of these.The only ones I have to use are the recirc. pump via the Kil-A-Watt, and the return line to adjust the foam height, i.e., wet vs dry skimate. the valve for the feedpump, Reeflo snapper and airpump, Alita 40 are wide open.The feedpump matches my return lines from the overflows very well.I did use other skimmers on this system, ASM G-6 , H&S 200, and H&S A300. My orp has been the highest with this skimmer, around 425. I know this is not a number to totally judge a skimmer by, but at least it is a quantitive factor.I'm sure I could get more out of my skimmer, but how much more and for what cost, is anybodys guess.I went off the recommendations of Scott and the former owner,who had good luck with these combo's. I still don't know if mine is offically a 1860 with the dimensions I gave .
earlier.

 

[Nanook]

I just cleaned the skimmer and here are some pics with it on the Alita 40 air pump:

 

[yeniraki]

Nanook, What is the neck diameter of your skimmer?

 

[Nanook]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13495394#post13495394 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by yeniraki
Nanook, What is the neck diameter of your skimmer?

8"

 

[Nanook]

Condensation is from the 12,600 Mitsubishi split system AC that blows right on the skimmer. I guess I should turn that off next time so the pictures are easier to see. The foam head is really quite impressive.