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  #176  
Old 12/05/2006, 12:22 PM
rivan rivan is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 76
Maybee I'm missing something.

I've been doing alot of reading on protein skimming, needle wheel mods and becketts. What I found in one early article is that a water column can only effectively hold approx. 13 % air to be an efficient skimmer. But I didn't find info on how this early researcher came to this number. I'm thinking its based on calculation of optimal bubble size.

Anyone think this may be true?

The reason I ask is that as I've been playing with beckett air injection I've noticed that with mine there is a definite sweet spot where a foam head is stable and very large. Add more air and it becomes unstable. Add less air and the total foam head above the foam water interface shrinks.

The implication of this is that everyone's search to inject more air may be futile and this is just using more power than necessary. Anyone care to comment ?
  #177  
Old 12/05/2006, 09:41 PM
jimmyj7090 jimmyj7090 is offline
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I can't comment on the max air volume, but I would say that this mod does more to make smaller bubbles than to inject more air.

Same volume of air, but in the form of smaller bubbles makes for more surface area on the bubbles, equals potentially better skimming.

To go back a bit (in this thread) traditionally people have used big strong pumps to force a ton of water through the beckett, drawing air at a max rate, which causes the air to strip off into small bubbles. The mod being disucssed (seems to) allow a smaller / lower pressure pump to acheive the desired smaller bubble size.

I may be off, but that's my understanding.
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  #178  
Old 12/10/2006, 10:13 PM
Isayso Isayso is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Hamilton
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I've been using the beckett with the mod for a month and half
22 holes of 1/16 diam...
JUST LOVE IT thanks for sharing with us

by the way my skimmer overall is 37"tall 6"diam 3/8 air inlet wide open
and is running with a mak4
man I wish that it was a bit taller
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lets save the reef
  #179  
Old 12/11/2006, 06:22 PM
RichConley RichConley is offline
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Has anyone tried this with a big flow pump? I'm thinking something along the lines of a Dart driving a quad beckett?
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72 Bow w/6x54w T5HO,,2xMaximod1200, PS-3000 skimmer
  #180  
Old 12/17/2006, 01:03 AM
IRISSERVICE IRISSERVICE is offline
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tagging along
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Tank-125 gallon Starphire
Lighting- 3 x 250w SLS Pendent W/ Icecap ballast
Protein Skimmer- Modiffied MRC 2
Custom MRC Sump Refugium
Circulation Tunze Wave Box
Main Pump - Sequence 3200
Cooling 3 - 119MM Fans and 1/4 HP Aqua Logic Chiller
Controller-Aquacontroller III
Korallin C-1502 Calcium Reactor
MRC Kalkreactor
  #181  
Old 12/17/2006, 02:36 AM
spykes spykes is offline
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Location: Brooklyn NY
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can anyone put more detail pictures on what has to be done to the injectors. I have a blueline 1100 i like to used on a beckett competing againest my deltec.
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  #182  
Old 12/17/2006, 08:56 PM
jimmyj7090 jimmyj7090 is offline
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IIRC, the mod seems to be working best for people with smaller pumps, and those with bigger pumps running the becketts haven't been seeing such an improvment.

But then oh yea, we talked about this today....

jk
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my reef ate my wallet
  #183  
Old 12/20/2006, 11:07 PM
Cuby2k Cuby2k is offline
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Location: City of Salt :(
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I started my DIY unit with an Iwaki 30 pressure pump on the beckett. It did nothing but burp. I shortened the supply tower length by 18" and got the water to flow a little better but it still burped. I got frustrated with the beckett then added a NW pump which BLEW bubbles up the main tower but I wanted to get the beckett to work. I drilled LARGER holes in the four original openings to permit MORE air to flow and it worked. I then upgraded my pump to an Iwaki 70 pressure pump and I now have all the bubbles a guy could want.

[IMG][/IMG]

I really think the best solution was to increase the size of the original openings in the beckett head, not make them smaller. The idea of the inlet tower is to permit the turbulent water flow to break the large bubbles into small bubbles.

I know this goes against the grain of this thread and to be honest I was hoping to see some tangible proof that the multiple smaller holes actually improved the performance but I think we are still lacking.
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  #184  
Old 12/20/2006, 11:23 PM
sherm71tank sherm71tank is offline
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Oh yeah? Well how about small slits (like Mazzei uses) instead of holes?
  #185  
Old 12/20/2006, 11:30 PM
DrBDC DrBDC is offline
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How is everyone decreasing the chances of little stomatella's, other snails, misc whatevers from getting clogged on the injectors. If you have a screen or what not on the intake, would you mind showing a pic?
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  #186  
Old 12/21/2006, 12:34 AM
jnarowe jnarowe is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by sherm71tank
Oh yeah? Well how about small slits (like Mazzei uses) instead of holes?
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(Click on the Red House to see my pics garage)
  #187  
Old 12/21/2006, 08:45 PM
shnapper20 shnapper20 is offline
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Location: australia
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very interesting thread, I have yet to make the mod but will once I get the pressure pump recommended for my skimmer. I have improved on what I originally ran by picking up on a few suggestions (thankyou) My skimmer was originally making large burps and it appeared to be caused by a build up of air at the top of the square shoulder of the base of the skimmer. I rectified a lot of this by bending a sheet of thin polycarbonate into the base preventing the bubbles from building up. Perhaps this condition is also prevelent amongst your skimmers or do you think the finner bubbles alone would prevent this from happening?
  #188  
Old 12/21/2006, 09:26 PM
Cuby2k Cuby2k is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by DrBDC
How is everyone decreasing the chances of little stomatella's, other snails, misc whatevers from getting clogged on the injectors. If you have a screen or what not on the intake, would you mind showing a pic?
Well before anything can get to my injector it has to pass the macerator impeller of my extremely noisey Iwaki pump. Now this is not say that nothing can get by because it does and has. My skimmer performance dropped off one day so I took the beckeet head apart and found a little piece of macro algae, it shows up in the photo below. This was sufficient to hamper the performance of the head.


As far as removing the ball inside the unit, I tried it and ZERO performance resulted. It looks to me like it increases the velocity of the water (around the sphere) which causes the venturi action.




Carry on.
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Rod "Cuby"
  #189  
Old 12/21/2006, 09:30 PM
DrBDC DrBDC is offline
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The ball makes the flow very narrow then after it is past it, the larger chamber creates the suction. You wouldn't have any suction w/o it.
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  #190  
Old 12/21/2006, 09:31 PM
Cuby2k Cuby2k is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by shnapper20
Perhaps this condition is also prevelent amongst your skimmers or do you think the finner bubbles alone would prevent this from happening?
I think the best way to eliminate the burps is to increase the velocity of the water. This reduces the chance of the small bubbles from "pooling" into a large (er) burp.

Increase the velocity by increasing the flow with a larger pump - or - reduce the size of the pipe. I went from a 3" dia clear acrylic tube about 18" tall to a 1.5" dia PVC pipe about 10" tall. it doesn't look nearly as cool as the clear acrylic tube, but it works.
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  #191  
Old 12/22/2006, 11:43 AM
einsteins einsteins is offline
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I just got a new Sequence Wahoo pump...it is pressure rated at like 1550 GPH and its only like 2.5ft from the pump to the beckett...I should get some good performance from that pump on my single beckett Trigger systems TS300.

Here are some pics of my skimmer pre-modded beckett:
http://www.einsweb.com/skimmer/

ein
  #192  
Old 12/22/2006, 11:55 AM
jnarowe jnarowe is offline
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That's got to be one of the prettiest skimmers I have ever seen!
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(Click on the Red House to see my pics garage)
  #193  
Old 12/22/2006, 12:28 PM
einsteins einsteins is offline
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It works great.....and I can completely disassemble it clean and reassemble it in 20 minutes max...

I have Scott at Aquarum Specialty building me a new custom sump....once thats complete I can hook the new pump to the skimmer...I bet it will perform really well then. I have a mag18 driving it now...

ein
  #194  
Old 12/28/2006, 11:15 AM
polcat_4u polcat_4u is offline
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22 drilled holes with a Mak4 and there is a big difference. Thanks for the mod!!!! I had to throttle the pump back a little and still can't open the air all the way but the foam is better and the burps are gone......
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I think DIY is the easiest way to do partial water changes.
  #195  
Old 12/30/2006, 12:54 AM
Zephrant Zephrant is offline
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I've been running one for months now- I can't say that I've seen a big performance boost with my exact setup, but it certainly has not hurt anything.

I'd certainly suggest it to any DIYer to give it a try.


Zeph
  #196  
Old 12/30/2006, 01:47 AM
polcat_4u polcat_4u is offline
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Guess I should have clarified. My skimmer is a 3 year old DIY beckett and never worked real well to begin with. It required daily tuning and was a real PITA. It was designed to run wet for the BB tank which I've recently changed back to DSB. The mod has helped quite a bit for me, it's been running about a week now and I haven't had to mess with it. The foam seems more stable because the burps are gone and the bubble do appear smaller.

I'm going to bite the "bullet" (no pun) and buy a new skimmer. I notice the ozone is taking it's toll on some of the plumbing on the old one. It would be nice to do the mod and use a smaller pump on the new skimmer and mayber use the mak4 for another CL.
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I think DIY is the easiest way to do partial water changes.
  #197  
Old 12/30/2006, 05:56 AM
RGibson RGibson is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by Zephrant
I've been running one for months now- I can't say that I've seen a big performance boost with my exact setup, but it certainly has not hurt anything.

I'd certainly suggest it to any DIYer to give it a try.


Zeph
What pump are you using on you skimmer?
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  #198  
Old 01/01/2007, 12:16 PM
sgolden sgolden is offline
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ok guys, im sold on redrilling my beckett, but i wonder ...is there a benefit to a taller downpipe between the injector and the skimmer base? (longer contact time)....and would it help if the downpipe was of a larger diameter? causing less velocity and allowing the bubbles within the downpipe to rise again and again till the bubbles were "heavy "with proteins??
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  #199  
Old 01/01/2007, 12:16 PM
sgolden sgolden is offline
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ok guys, im sold on redrilling my beckett, but i wonder ...is there a benefit to a taller downpipe between the injector and the skimmer base? (longer contact time)....and would it help if the downpipe was of a larger diameter? causing less velocity and allowing the bubbles within the downpipe to rise again and again till the bubbles were "heavy "with proteins??
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shaun golden- reef aquarium society of charlotte-www.rasoc.org
  #200  
Old 01/01/2007, 12:53 PM
RGibson RGibson is offline
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On my beckett skimmers i have the injector down as low on the base as it will go ,i have used taller downpipes ,the lower pipe works better.I get a quart of waste per day a low pipe helps to make this happen.
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