Basic Skimmer Questions.

[ProdigalPoster]

How do you determine the proper amount of flow through the skimmer? When is there too much?

Is it possible to actually pump air in rather then relying on it being sucked in?

How fine is a microbubble supposed to be?

Does anyone have a good picture of wet skimming? I tried to do it and I was told I was simply removing too much water..

Thanks guys!

[scottw]

you will know when there is too much when the water just overflows the cup that is one way, another way is the foam doesnt produce anything but really lite colored foam, microbubble will be a lot larger if any at all.

I will find a pic of Bob's Deltec 1004 wet skimming. but that is a $3k+ skimmer, I am sure there are others that have pics of a less expensive skimmer as I am positive they are out there

[mikester]

This site you might find helpful for basic skimmer design questions:

http://www.hawkfish.org/snailman/skimmer101.htm

This is all summarized from P.R. Escobal's book "Aquatic Systems Engineering", which has a couple of chapters dedicated just to skimmer design. It's a great book but can be hard to find, but the link above will give you all the basics, just not the proofs behind how he came up with those charts.

[fkadir]

Mike, the link is very useful but the flowthru the skimmer quoted is extremely low! they are aiming for a tank over of once every 12 hours! e.g for a 200G tank, recommended flowthru is 150G/hr! Most of us are way way above this flowrate with the modern skimmers we are using. Wonder if the findings are still valid and recommended since most of the skimmer manufacturers are not following the rules..

[mikester]

If you look at Deltec's flow-through ratings, they are pretty close to the chart. Non-recirculating skimmers typically need a higher flow rate to inject enough air, i.e. you're not going to get anywhere flowing 200 gph through a beckett. In his book, he does show empirically that you will remove more stuff by passing water through the skimmer more slowly than you will by passing it through quickly and more often. So the key is to pass the water through as slowly as possible while still turning over the total tank volume often enough. I think his recommendation of turning over the entire tank every 12 hours is based on observation more than anything.