Aspirating venturi without needle wheel?

[Rickster88888]

Hi guys,

Has anyone tried using a pump with a aspirating venturi, ie the air inlet is at the inlet of the pump, without needlewheel on their skimmer?

I got a spare skimmer body and pump lying around and was wondering if i could run it with the above mention method.

[wharfrat48]

Yup- have mine on a Rio 2100 works fine although I'm sure a needlewheel would work better. Depending on the pump you could always do a bioball mod.

[impur]

Or the fishing line mod should work on most pumps.

[wharfrat48]

Whats the fishing line mod?

[impur]

There was a guy here who drilled a bunch of small holes in the impeller blades of a maxijet impeller. Then he used fishing line thru all the various holes. The fishing line helps chop up the bubbles, same idea as the bioball. I'll try to get a pic, but the search function here on RC doesn't work unless you pay now so......

[Rickster88888]

Thanks for the imput.
Dont think i will be modding the pump impeller.

Erm will the bubble size be very big with those normal pump impeller?

[impur]

Larger than without the mod. The via aqua skimmers use a venturi and do not mod the impellers. They are very impressive still, pulling a very dark skimmate and giving you lots of control over the air input and water level.

That said, i've tried running a skimmer with a maxijet and venturi. It was not very good, but when i mod the impeller with a bioball it does very well.

Your other option is to get one of the GenX needlewheel pumps from customaquatics.com. You can get the 265gph needlewheel for 19 bucks. Depends on how large your system is i guess. I've read very good reviews about these pumps.

[Safedad]

I am running an airline into the inlet of a maxi jet 1200. I drilled a hole in the long intake for the hose to go into. My CPR needs to be emptied about twice a week. I tried the bio ball mod and it didn't seem to help. I also tried drilling one hole in each impellar and that helped some. I am going to try a venturi next
Good luck

[Rickster88888]

Initially i tried to use a mazzei 584 venturi on the skimmer but then i couldn't get enough flow through the injector. The pump i used was a 3800 litres/hour pump. Since this spare skimmer is still lying around i guess i will try to modify it and run the air intake to the pump intake and hopefully will get positive results.