Octopus HOB Skimmer Owners - Page 14

happyface888 · #**326** 12/08/2007, 12:17 AM

I see, I think a 1/4 tube is still possible though, but you cant have the slant on it or else it won't work. The genx I have has the 1/4 ID on it but I can't keep the slant on it if I do it starts to choke. I haven't tested it on a skimmer yet.

I'm still curious since I dont own a dwyer does widening the insides help draw in more air? FareF poste the pic I posted and the thread and it said it helped.

lemmiwinks · #**327** 12/08/2007, 02:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by FishAreFriends2
If you get a chance think you can get some close up shots of the unit? The micros will go away eventaully, give it about a week, you might still have some but its not like the start. You can later experiment by making a a bubble trap or wrap a sponge around the outlet.

I just noticed something all most all octopus skimmers require us to do some modding to make them skim like mad lol just like the big in sump ones.

sure, what angle exactly are you after? i dont mind pulling it out to get a better close up of it. just took a few more pics anyway.

after about 17 hours, the skimmer has pulled out about half a pint of 'murky' liquid (as mentioned before). it slowed down heaps after the first few hours.

in this pic you can see that the bubbles are pretty big. any way of reducing there size? i've read something about gutter guard somehwere..

this is the collection cup. for some reason the water has a glacier colour to it, you can only slightly see it in the photo.

this is how it was connected. i'm going to my LFS today to get a longer drainage pipe

closeup of the top

happyface888 · #**328** 12/08/2007, 03:01 AM

Is the collection cup stuck to the unit? And what kind of pump are you using? Thats alot of skimmate but it seems a little too watery. Is there away to adjust the water height? I'd like a picture of the whole unit out of the water, might give me a better understanding of how this little skimmer works.

in the instructions it seems you can adjust the water lvl, I'd lower the water lvl.

lemmiwinks · #**329** 12/08/2007, 06:51 AM

the water level adjustor basically just restricts the pump outlet, which in turn increases the water level. i'm not using it, and have set it up so that the water level is as high as it goes.

the skimmer has stopped pulling out heaps of water, bubbles are only just reaching the top every now and then. i think the half pint it pulled had something to do with the huge number of micro bubbles associated with breaking a new skimmer in..

the collection cup can be removed, which is why i'm thinking some kind of fine mesh placed between the cup and chamber would break the big bubbles down into smaller bubbles. has anyone done this on their larger skimmers?

heres pics of the skimmer from all 4 side angles, some of the bits are lablled despite how obvious some of the parts are :P

on the next one you can see the water level adjuster installed. might give you a better understanding on how it works (restricting outflow which increases water level)

you can also see the collection cup removed.. perhaps simply replacing it with a square of fly wire between the cup and chamber would reduce bubble size (?)

dzeadow · #**330** 12/08/2007, 10:55 AM

If you want to reduce the size of the bubbles, you're going to have to change the impeller on the pump some how. The needles on it aren't "cutting" the air fine enough. I've seen some impeller blades on standard pumps that people drilled small holes in and threaded fishing line through it and criss-crossed it as they threaded it in each blade, seemed to be an easy fix. I just mesh modded the Resun225F that comes on the 100F hang on. I'm getting at least 2x the bubble output for the time being, plus it's a finer milkier output. Since I just changed to the new pump, I'm getting crazy micro bubbles in the tank. After a few days when it settles down, I'll have to see what needs to be done to mostly eliminate them.

luke33 · #**331** 12/08/2007, 10:57 AM

Danny, how does it look now?

dzeadow · #**332** 12/08/2007, 11:27 AM

Well, the air meter doesn't show much. I would venture to say that if I couldn't see the results in the chambers, that it wasn't pulling much more air in at all.. But if its from .5 to 1, which doesn't look like anything on this meter, it's still doubled. Anyway, I woke up this morning to see the crazy bubbles half way up the neck of the collection cup and the water level in the return chamber had risen. So I took a pic of the chamber and the bubbles in the neck. Then I raised the collection cup to put it back where its sitting on the layer of bubbles. It's now closer to 2" up from where it was before any modding! Here's the pics.

bubbles in neck this morning before moving cup:

return chamber

after moving cup

If the water level gets any higher I'm going to have to think about modding the thing for flow, I'd rather not push my luck for an over flow. It may be hard to tell but the levels are getting close to the top of the skimmer

FishAreFriends2 · #**333** 12/08/2007, 11:31 AM

looking nice it will get higher don't worry

dzeadow · #**334** 12/08/2007, 11:33 AM

no, I don't want it to get any higher! I'll have to put it in a bucket on the back of my tank just in case it overflows!!

dzeadow · #**335** 12/08/2007, 11:40 AM

You can see the teflon tape in the pic, that's the bottom of the cup. there's only about an 1" to play with now in that chamber. After I moved the cup up though, I"m starting to see some rising bubble action. Hopefully it'll start producing some skimmate today

FishAreFriends2 · #**336** 12/08/2007, 01:51 PM

I was saying the bubbles

not the water lvl you got foam in the riser.

FishAreFriends2 · #**337** 12/08/2007, 02:18 PM

Well you can get yourself more play room if you restricted the pump alittle but thats optional. Maybe you will do it to help the skimmate abit, if you cant get the skimmate you want. You would have to restrict some flow right?

luke33 · #**338** 12/08/2007, 02:56 PM

If you could fit a very small piece of 1/2" pvc in there and slide it all the way to the venturi injector then it would slow down your pump a bit and possible pull more air. It would be a very small piece of 1/2" pvc, like 1/4" worth.

dzeadow · #**339** 12/08/2007, 03:00 PM

I don't think I can restrict the flow much on the pump... before I took the gray venturi restrictor off it wasn't doing hardly anything. The only thing I can think of doing to restrict it a little more would be to put the same ID pipe in the volute but get some type of bigger OD. The way a typical venturi works, as you probably already know, is that theres a big pipe that gets restricted to create higher flow rate, right after this is the venturi hole (which is generally just a hole in the top of the pipe) so the higher flow of water actually pulls the air through the hole. The way this one is set up, there's no reduction in volute size, but the pipe inside the volute is taking up enough room to cause the water flow to accelerate around the pipe still pulling in the air. If I put a larger OD pipe on it, it would restrict the flow just a little more possibly causing more air to be pulled in through the same ID that I have.

Actually, forget everything I just wrote.. I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm just pretending to put everything together that I've ever read.. probably only works in theory (in my head)...unless someone else more intelligent in this area chimes in to tell me that it would or wouldn't work.

dzeadow · #**340** 12/08/2007, 03:02 PM

the unfortunate thing is, I'd have to pull the pump off, redrill the venturi intake closer to the impeller hub, and then try the pvc. But since everything on the skimmer is metric, I can only imagine that the parts and fittings that would fit into/on this would be metric as well.

FishAreFriends2 · #**341** 12/08/2007, 03:31 PM

I'd let luke chime in on that, he's modded alot of skimmers. If you feel that the skimmer is pulling the right skimmate once its broken in, than theres no point in restricting i. I'd let it break in and see what color the skimmate is. If its the same darkness as before you modded but more than I'd leave it alone. Until than just watch the skimmate. You still have a little play room left also.
I think I would leave it here unless the foams not dry enough here

dzeadow · #**342** 12/08/2007, 03:51 PM

The foam there would have been VERY wet. The skimmer hasn't broken in yet w/ this mod and isn't really pulling anything. The only reason the bubbles are that high in the neck is because I have teflon on the outside of the cup and there's no where else for the water to go but up. I was surprised when I pulled out the cup at how high the water level was compared to where it was last night.

dzeadow · #**343** 12/08/2007, 03:55 PM

The good news is, there's still a lot of micro bubbles, when I say a lot, i mean A LOT, in the return chamber.. but they're calming down a ton in the tank. The only thing I can think is that the bubble eliminator is working well enough that most of the micros are being popped at the surface or turning into bigger bubbles and then making their way directly to the surface.

FishAreFriends2 · #**344** 12/08/2007, 04:30 PM

ah I see I didnt notice the teflon there. we will have to keep with the updates until it starts to skim. Usually does take a while

FishAreFriends2 · #**345** 12/08/2007, 05:02 PM

Oh how much room do you have now, if you wanted to raise it more? I hope you have atleast 1inch of play room. But the foam in the prevous pic didnt make it to the top yet so it could be almost dry when it hits the top?

dzeadow · #**346** 12/08/2007, 05:13 PM

Well, before the mod was done, I had the cup sitting at the top of the bubbles.. right in the middle of the thicker layer of bubbles, so when it wasn't doing anything there wouldn't be any action in the neck. But when it was skimming it was taking nasty dark green stuff out. After the mod, when I woke up this morning, the cup was basically sitting 1" below that same level and that's why the bubbles were so far up the neck. I would have ended up with tea colored or lighter skimmate. I raised it to be the same spot as before the mod, right in the middle of the thick layer of bubbles at the top. So we'll see what happens. I only have 1" to work with until the cup is out of the skimmer completely.

FishAreFriends2 · #**347** 12/08/2007, 06:01 PM

that sounds like enough room, even before the mod you may have more play room but you probaly didnt need alot aswell.
i like this idea

Quote:

Originally posted by luke33
If you could fit a very small piece of 1/2" pvc in there and slide it all the way to the venturi injector then it would slow down your pump a bit and possible pull more air. It would be a very small piece of 1/2" pvc, like 1/4" worth.

how long has the skimmer been running since the mod?

dzeadow · #**348** 12/08/2007, 06:09 PM

its been running less than 24hrs. I put it on between 8-9 Mountain time last night. so 19-20 hrs. I haven't seen much action, but then again I'm not sitting there staring at it either. I do go in and check and make sure it's not going crazy every now and again. I did get more room back though. I realized that where the carbon bag was sitting in the return chamber, it was hindering the flow of water through the return tube. So I moved it a little and now I got that extra inch back.. I feel a little safer for the moment!

FishAreFriends2 · #**349** 12/08/2007, 06:11 PM

so the carbon took up extra water space and made the water lvl rise. Well if your not running carbon 7 days a week than it be fine. Thats good to hear you got some room back. Now to wait for the skimmate to come. I wonder if that heater took up space too lol.

ops misread lolyou moved it a bit and that fixed the flow exit.

luke33 · #**350** 12/08/2007, 06:13 PM

If it won't fit, take a dremel and sand it on the outside until its a nice snug fit. You'll have to keep it long and do it like that on the end, then just cut it down real small and push it in. It will slow your flow and increase your air.