my thoughts on ASM G4

[Texas Dolly]

I am offically delaring my ASM G4 is a POS! I cannot get mroe than minimal skimmate from it. My ES5-3 sittting right beside it is pulling over a cup per day of black tar. The bad part is the 5-3 is skimming water that has already passed through the G4.

I have decided 3 things.

1. The sedra 5000 is too small for this large unit. I even talked to some owners of the 8-2 and 8-3 that agree the pump is too small. They two only get bubbles in the top half of the skimmer body. Even though they still work very good. So why?
2. The riser tube is too wide. I think this is the main reason I do not get good skimmate. The riser tube is at least 1.5 inches larger in diameter than the ER's.
3. There are no holes drilled in the lid of the ASM. Why does ER do it? I would assume all the air released from the bubbles causes back pressure. I think this back pressure, combined with the larger riser tube, and underpowered pump is preventing me from getting the skimmate I desire.

I am going to give it another week and then I will sell it and buy another ER or maybe the GEO version.

[tampa-reefer]

How long have you had it running? Theres no airvent in the lid, are you sure?

[Texas Dolly]

Originally posted by tampa-reefer
How long have you had it running? Theres no airvent in the lid, are you sure?

Friday will be three weeks. Nope no air vents on the lid

Any ideas to get it to work better?

[owskkibibles]

drill holes in the lid! and/or put a different pump, i think the holes in the lid would help a ton by themselves though

[infrared69]

soon to buy a ASM G-3 so i am tagging along.

[BraenDead]

Lacking holes in the lid seems awfully odd. Since you are thinking of possibly selling it, you can probably prop up a corner of the lid a bit to create a small gap - hopefully this will not affect much but prevent pressure buidup.

Bob

[Zoom]

Is the top of your skimmer cup look like this ? Look at Dubge pictures looks like they have some small 1/4 cuts on the top of the skimmer cup not the lid. If it looks the same that is your vents.

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...&pagenumber=48

[Texas Dolly]

Yeah my skimmer looks like that. Those are to screw on the lid. Once locked/closed I doubt much, if any, air escapes there.

[Reefmaniac1]

No issues with my G2x.

[MaGNuS042]

have u tried turning off the euroreef to let the asm do its magic??

[Reefmaniac1]

Interesting suggestion.

[just dave]

I run a G3 and a G4 on the same system and I agree that the G4 could have benefited from a larger pump. I made some mods to my G4 to fill the skimmer body with air. The cup lids are not air tight and vent well enough. Knowing what I know now,I'd have just used a second G3 because even though the G4 performs well enough it is no better 'n the G3.

[conspicman]

I have a G-5 and the lid of the collection cup has 1/4 slots where it lock that act like vents. They work very well I might add. I also modified one of the pumps so that it will work only as a recurculating needle wheel venturi pump. This mod really makes the skimmer work well. It procuces a tremendious amount of bubbles and has wonderful contact time. At the moment I am thinking about adding another sedra needle wheel pump as a recirulating pump. If I end up doing that than the skimmer should really blow up.

[clown-x]

That's interesting to hear.. i almost bought a g4. We went with the g3 and it's awesome... it pulls out a ton of junk... my only suggestion would be make sure it's adjusted right.. if it's not it won't pull out anything... that was the problem we had the first week with the g3.. didn't do much at all.. messed with the adjustments and got it working where it's pulling out a ton now.

[Texas Dolly]

What is the correct "adjustment"? On my ER I remove the cup and pull the tube up untill bubbles just barely foam over the neck, then I replace cup and it works like a champ. I tried this with the ASM and got nothing but a little gunk in the skimmer neck. For the last 3 weeks I have tried almost every height. I have figured out how to get some gunk in the neck but little to nothing to spill over into the cup. If I raise it much higher I get a little light colored tea in the cup but never anything more, it seems like at that height the water is too turblent in the riser and seems to collapse the foam column. When it is low it does not want to make it up the riser, and when it is in the middle it really does neither LOL

I think some of the issues could be resoved with some mods, ie. another Sedra 5000 and/or a water diffuser(like the bubble king) 3/4 of the way up the skimmer body. The plate IMO would allow me to raiser the tube higher without letting turbelent water into the riser.

But I don't know if it is even worth the effort or the $$$.


Last but not lest I have no plans of removing the 5-3. It is down stream of the G4. Plus if I have to remove a smaller skimmer that works great to get a much more expensive skimmer to skim, was it worth buying the G4? Obviously the 5-3 at this stage is way more efficent. The G4, if it works like everyone thinks they do, should starve the skimmate from the 5-3, as it is down stream. The G4 should remove the waste before it reaches the 5-3. So the 5-3 is only skimming what the G4 missed.