mod my eheim 1262 to a needle wheel skimmer pump

[johns]

can anyone explain how to mod the eheim 1262 for use as a needle wheel skimmer pump? is there a thread somewhere that I can just follow along?

[wife no likey]

You can get a NW impeller from ER that works in a 1262. I purchased one from them around Jan for $50, but they have since raised the price to $100. The H&S version that Finsreef sells is also $100.

I also modded the normal impeller that came w/ the pump using the NW from a sedra impeller. I cut the pins off and run 4 layers of PF4 on it.

Pete

[johns]

Besides the impeller, do you need to get the venturi for it?

[wife no likey]

yes, a venturi of some type is needed, unless you inject air w/ a pump (which I do now)

I managed to get about 20scfh w/ about 24" of head off of the meshmodded impeller and a DIY venturi. I believe mavgi experimented w/ a 1262 as well and found similar results.

The pump was pulling in excess of 120w; while it is rated at 80. It was getting fairly hot drawing that much current.

I also wanted at least 40scfh for my skimmer, so I went the pump route.

With the air pump, the 1262 pulls 60w and the air pump pulls 15 - while I'm injecting about 45scfh now.

[johns]

I'm unfamiliar with using a separate air pump. If this is the better route to take, could you explain what you are using - what is the pump and how is it connected? Any links?

[wife no likey]

i'm using a coralife sl-38 and just threaded the elbow right before the intake for a 3/8" JG adapter. I have a dwyer flow meter inline and use that to regulate the flow. You're supposed to bleed off the excess air I believe (in order to extend air pump life) but I don't as it was excessively noisy - and the basement is loud enough already. :)

I really think that the air pump is the way to go; it removes much of the burden from your recirculating pump and uses less wattage altogether.

[johns]

Ok. I just looked up the air pump. Bear with me, I'm a little new to this.

There is nothing on the intake side of the Eheim 1262 currently. And the only pieces that come with it are for nose barb fittings. Did you just thread something like a 'T' onto the inlet side of the pump, and then thread this air pump into the vertical end of the 'T'?

This sounds like it might be a noisy pump - is that the case?

Also, does it cause any additional noise in the Eheim pump itself when the air is injected into the inlet?

[johns]

bump

[gman107]

pennilessreefer, do you have any photos of your set up on that eheim or any pics of the impellers???

[andyjd]

I've been looking into this....and I know it's possible to DIY but I think I'm just going to buy a complete pump from Fins reef.

Andy

[johns]

I'd probably look into buying one too. But since I'll have an extra 1262 here soon...

[gman107]

any updates????????????

[hahnmeister]

Guys, Im able to get much more than that from my 1262... thats for sure. I also enlarged the output (rather than use a 3/4" pipe to thread into the output, I bonded a union to the outside of the pump so the outlet is a full 1"+). According to conversations I have had with ER tech support, they dont even mod their pumps like H&S and Deltec... the needlewheel alone should put you in the 900lph range. Perhaps your venturi isnt a good as it could be?

With the regular needlewheel, Im getting about 900lph, and with mesh, Im over 1000lph... about 1200 actually. ATI was able to get up to 1800lph from their 1262s, but that might have been with the 220v eheims only.

FWIW, we are killin' the Red Dragon pumps with our DIY versions over in the DIY Red Dragon thread... over 100scfh from merely mesh-modding a Laguna pond pump...

[johns]

anyone-

whats the conversion for scfh to lph?

i'm looking into getting a needle wheel impeller and venturi/volute from ER to upgrade from my current GenX 6000 pump. do you have a feel for how the GenX might compare in lph to using the ER needlewheel and venturi/volute on a stock Eheim 1262?

[hahnmeister]

I use 35cfh = 1000lph. Its close enough. I think its actually 35.3 cubic feet per 1000 liters.

Another one is liters to gallons, as the BKs seem to like listing their air intake in gallons. gallons x 3.78-3.79 = liters.

So a BK650 external, which has two pumps doing 528gph each of air is really doing 1056 gph, equal to about 4000 lph, or 141 scfh.

As for the Gen-X 6000, I dont think that the ER volute/impeller well is any different, just the addition of the venturi (which anyone could make themselves as well using a ball/gate valve and a 'T' intake fitting for the air.

The needlewheel is most likely all you need.

I forget the numbers on the 6000, but it should surpass that of the 4100 by a bit... not much though. The 4100 is the diamond of the bunch... 3/4" outlet, euroreef gets up to about 900lph with one (1080lph with the 6000). So the 4100 is pretty close to the Eheim in all respects. The thing is that I know the 4100 can be further modded to pull about 42scfh with a mesh mod. http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=966407

As for the 6000 and 8500, these are larger pumps, and I have heard of them being modded, but they dont seem to get the extreme wattage/performance results of the 4100. The 8500 can run up to 230-250 watts after all... you can get better outputs with the DIY Red Dragons we are doing for half that wattage (a stock Laguna 2905 pump with just a meshwheel mod is doing 120 scfh!)

[bergzy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9721724#post9721724 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pennilessreefer
i'm using a coralife sl-38 and just threaded the elbow right before the intake for a 3/8" JG adapter. I have a dwyer flow meter inline and use that to regulate the flow. You're supposed to bleed off the excess air I believe (in order to extend air pump life) but I don't as it was excessively noisy - and the basement is loud enough already. :)

I really think that the air pump is the way to go; it removes much of the burden from your recirculating pump and uses less wattage altogether.

http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_air_pumps_coralife_luft_pump.asp?CartId=

SL-38 2.9 PSI 1.34 cubic feet/min (38 liters/min) 22W 0.2A 5"L x 3"W x 4"H

i have the same air pump but i use it for a totally different reason...to circulate 3 barrels of my nsw for water changes and my two garbage cans full of live rock...

is the calculation of 1.34 cfmx60(min)=80.4cfh...'i think'...which is an amazing amount of air! this also converts to 284 gallons/hour.

hahnmeister...

can you interpret the 'performance' of the bk650 external? i am not sure how they reported their numbers:
http://www.finsreef.com/product.php?productid=16299&cat=262&page=2

Dimensions: 28.4" x 33.5"
Height: 33.5"
Rated for: 1057 - 2642 gal
Pump: 2 x 58 Watt
Performance-Air/Water: 2 x 528 g/h - 1585 g/h

are they reporting TWOx528g/h of 'air' to 1585g/h of 'water'...

does this mean that there is a total of 1056g/h of 'air' and 3070g/h of 'water'? or am i totally wrong?

the $6800 price tag seems a bit high for a skimmer even if does use only 116 watts....

[wife no likey]

here's some pics of my setup:

http://mysite.verizon.net/sablalik/12621.jpg


http://mysite.verizon.net/sablalik/12622.jpg

[wife no likey]

here is one of the skimmer itself:

http://mysite.verizon.net/sablalik/skimmer.jpg


I'll tell you from first hand experience that there is no way you will get more than 25scfh with any more than 12" head on a 1262.

Works great w/ the air pump though. http://www.smilieshq.com/smilies/happy0119.gif (http://www.smilieshq.com)


http://mysite.verizon.net/sablalik/scfh.jpg

[johns]

Sorry, maybe my last post wasnt very clear. When I say I am thinking about upgrading pumps on my current EuroReef, I meant that I am thinking about getting the needlewheel and venturi/volute from EuroReef for an extra Eheim 1262 I have here and taking off the GenX 6000 pump that came with the skimmer.

So I was trying to get an idea of how many lph to expect on the stock Eheim 1262 with a needlewheel, venturi, volute from EuroReef. To compare to what my GenX 6000 does (should be around 1080).

[hahnmeister]

pennilessreefer, Im tellin ya... Ive gone over 35scfh with an eheim 1262, easily. Dont know if its your venturi or the impeller itself, but there has to be something. Yours is on a pretty tall skimmer body though, so no doubt that is also a limiting factor for you. Still, Euroreef is using the 1262, not even modded (just needlewheel) on their RC1000 they get 720lph or 25scfh on a 48" tall skimmer.

As for the swap out johns, I dont think you will see a performance increase... you might get it about the same, but you might even see a hit in performance. You could do dual 4100s... that would be an increase...

[johns]

Hanhmeister-

If the Eheim is about the same or slightly less performance, it'll be ok. I'm trying to find a quieter pump for this skimmer body.

[wife no likey]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9865822#post9865822 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hahnmeister
pennilessreefer, Im tellin ya... Ive gone over 35scfh with an eheim 1262, easily. Dont know if its your venturi or the impeller itself, but there has to be something. Yours is on a pretty tall skimmer body though, so no doubt that is also a limiting factor for you. Still, Euroreef is using the 1262, not even modded (just needlewheel) on their RC1000 they get 720lph or 25scfh on a 48" tall skimmer.



uh. .the ER may be 48" high altogether, but the pumps are plumbed about half way up the body:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1000784&highlight=rc1000

I'd really like to see some pics of a 1262 pulling 35 with more than a foot of head. No matter how much porting, polishing, shining or greasing you do I don't think it's possible.

[johns]

Pennilessreefer-

I checked my GenX 6000 pump with no modification and it was pulling about 37scfh, which is pretty close to what what ER says it will pull (they claim 1080lph)

So, if ER says the Eheim will pull nearly the same amount of air (I think 900 - 1000lph??), I dont see why it would be be so much lower than what i found on the GenX. If so, I'd really like to know before I decide to buy an Eheim 1262 from. if it's that bad, I wont waste my money.

[wife no likey]

well a 6000 is rated at 1500gph 0 head, so that's more than the Eheim.

Just wondering, do you have a kill a watt or something to see what you're drawing with the genx?

Like I said though, the draw is highly dependant on pressure, so if you have the Eheim plumbed up high (like ER) then 30scfh is possible. I'm sure that the extra tweaking involved to increase the output diameter would be necessary though.

On an aside, I try not to use Chinese made stuff that touches water. It's fine for something like an air pump though. :)


Pete

[skey44]

the noise is probably from the air not the pump?

[johns]

pennilessreefer-

thanks for your help so far

I dont have a kill a watt, but I can get hold of one if you are interested. What will you tell from that?

First thing I should clarify is that this skimmer I am talking about is not a recir model - just a normal single pass skimmer, 8" tube, 30" high and GenX 6000 pump plumbed into the side - it's a CS250. It's not surprising that the GenX is rated higher than the Eheim - I can tell the thing is really moving a lot of water. What I am wanting to do is simply get an Eheim needlewheel pump (or at least get the impeller and venturi/volute assembly from EuroReef for the 1262 I already have here) and plug it into the skimmer in place of the GenX 6000. EuroReef has told me that the output on the Eheim will wind up being a couple inches shorter than the hole in the skimmer body for the GenX 6000 - so I will have to raise the Eheim up on something for this to work. I'll probably just silicone neoprene padding to the bottom of the pump to raise it. - actually, I'm not sure why I couldn't just use a couple inches of PVC tubing to increase the height of the output on the Eheim pump before the elbow that inserts into the skimmer body. But whichever way is better would be easy to do.

So it sounds like in my case the Eheim will be raised and plumbed up a little higher than would normally be the case. I dont know what that means in terms of the pressure on the pump. Maybe you can help me understand?

Also for the output on the Eheim I was planning to use these 0.75 - 1.00" male adapters I found. I know they work becuase I use one on the Eheim I have as a return pump. It's just a 0.75 threaded piece that opens up to accept 1.00" PVC.

[wife no likey]

personally, I'd go all out and just drill two more holes and make it recirculating. :)

But performance-wise, it would probably be best to somehow rig the output to inject straight in, rather than travelling up and then hit a 90 over.

If you are going to have the pump propped up on something, why not just have it sit laterally in relation to the skimmer and on its side?

[wife no likey]

oh, and here is a post that I found very helpful when I was starting out building my skimmer:


http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8356121#post8356121

[hahnmeister]

johns, if you want to get the most from a 1262, rather than using a 3/4" fitting that fits inside the threads, you may just consider a 1" union bonded to the front of the skimmer outlet... leaving the whole outlet 1" in diameter.

ATI claims they do something similar, but among other things I have seen in pics, the ATI version (one of their versions I should say) simply uses the 7479970 outlet adapter shown in the 1264 part manual. Maybe that was just an earlier version... perhaps one used on their twister-M line of skimmers. Later ones appear to have a thin-wall insert in the outlet... a sign that they bored it out.

Johns, the idea of force feeding it doesnt seem like that bad of an idea actually... you could get it up to 1200lph of air then w/o modding anything really.

Or, if you arent in any particular rush, eheim's new 1255 needlewheel (thats right, a factory made needlewheel) is supposed to shut down even the 1260/1262 needlewheels.

Or, you could get a laguna pump and meshmod it...lol. I gotta say, these Laguna pumps are made just as well as anything eheim has put out, and their air outputs have been insane (weve hit the 120 scfh mark already... giving Red Dragons themselves a run for it).

[luke33]

Haun, does laguna pump's have anything under 1000gph though? There all rated very high.

[hahnmeister]

sure... the hagen 901 powerheads

[johns]

If you are going to have the pump propped up on something, why not just have it sit laterally in relation to the skimmer and on its side?

That's an idea. Of course I'd have to raise it up quite a bit higher, but I'll have to think about whether I have something to prop it up that high.

johns, if you want to get the most from a 1262, rather than using a 3/4" fitting that fits inside the threads, you may just consider a 1" union bonded to the front of the skimmer outlet... leaving the whole outlet 1" in diameter.

Another good idea. Do you just use a slip union fitting to bond to the outlet? What do you use to bond it?

Or, if you arent in any particular rush, eheim's new 1255 needlewheel (thats right, a factory made needlewheel) is supposed to shut down even the 1260/1262 needlewheels.

thats interesting. So when might that become available?

[hahnmeister]

I bond the face of the pump itself to the face of a slip union. I used PVC cement as the main bond, then made a fillet of Weldon-16 after that cured.

As for the 1255... who knows. The euro forums are all stirring in anticipation. The big deal with them seems to be that eheim tweaked the pump so well that it might put the 1260-1262 tuner-shops out of practice. Perhaps eheim is giving H&S and Deltec some time to refit or something, but early reports are of over 1000lph of air from this little pump. They increased the volute, the outlet, and the speed, and put in a needlewheel... looks like it might be a nasty little pump.

That, and ATI has something in the works... a pump that does 2x as much what the current Sicce one does for the same wattage.

[luke33]

Haun, so has anyone modded the hagen 901 and if so what kinda air are we talkin? I'm thinkin of tinkering around with a WP1000 NW from odyssea...should be fun for 39bux. A NW pump thats 1000gph seems to good to be true, and it pry is. I'll get an air meter with the extra money i saved. lol

[andyjd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9872245#post9872245 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hahnmeister
I bond the face of the pump itself to the face of a slip union. I used PVC cement as the main bond, then made a fillet of Weldon-16 after that cured.

As for the 1255... who knows. The euro forums are all stirring in anticipation. The big deal with them seems to be that eheim tweaked the pump so well that it might put the 1260-1262 tuner-shops out of practice. Perhaps eheim is giving H&S and Deltec some time to refit or something, but early reports are of over 1000lph of air from this little pump. They increased the volute, the outlet, and the speed, and put in a needlewheel... looks like it might be a nasty little pump.

That, and ATI has something in the works... a pump that does 2x as much what the current Sicce one does for the same wattage.

Wonder what the figures will be like on American Voltage? its probably worth just buying a 230v version and buying a step-up transformer.

Andy

[hahnmeister]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9872968#post9872968 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by luke33
Haun, so has anyone modded the hagen 901 and if so what kinda air are we talkin? I'm thinkin of tinkering around with a WP1000 NW from odyssea...should be fun for 39bux. A NW pump thats 1000gph seems to good to be true, and it pry is. I'll get an air meter with the extra money i saved. lol

what do you mean? A Gen-X 4100 is a 1000+ gph pump that is a needlewheel...

[luke33]

Haun, i'm just talking about the price, not the gph, $39 bux for a 1000gph NW.........mixed up the wording. There's plenty of over 1000gph nw pump's out there, just none for so cheap.

[hahnmeister]

Oceanrunner 3700/3500s are nearly 1000gph (actually its not the gph, but the air they can do, and the 3700/3500 can do loads of air).

[hahnmeister]

http://www.sgreefclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=51267&st=30%EF%BF%BD

as per jervismun,
"I think your discovery is wonderful!!! This is what I call product development Yes a smaller pump (lower wattage) will work well for the sump, the reefer and the environment

The latest ATI Bubble Master 250 already consumed too much power in my opinion.

They started with:
Eheim 1260 consuming 49W producing 2000 ltrs of air per hour

Right now:
Eheim 1262 consuming 80W producing 3000 ltrs of air per hour (sorta verified by AcidJazz's BM as his air flow meters shows a constant max at 2500 ltrs, I will try to get hold of a digital air flow meter)."

My goal has been to break the 2000lph mark with a 1262.

Or, you could just jump ship all together and order a Laguna Max-Flo 2400 pond pump, enkamat mod it, etc. Were getting over 100 scfh with them by just modding the impeller and adding the air inlet (not even a custom volute of venturi... so who knows where we will end up on that). So far, these pumps are able to make 33g rubbermaid trashcans into skimmers, and I would speculate we can get up to 120 scfh from it (3400lph)

That DIY Red Dragon project has been a shocker... I set out to see if I could make a cheaper version of a RD, with maybe some of its performance... ended up beating the crap out of it as well as the new needlewheel Dart.

[ostrow]

hahn you got a link to a thread on the laguna mesh mod?

[hahnmeister]

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=9899194#post9899194

[ostrow]

Oh ok it's buried in there. Thanks. Thought there was a separate thread, how-to, for that pump, etc.