PDA

View Full Version : diy beckett skimmer


Dez
12-09-2004, 12:05 AM
This is a skimmer that I made quite a while ago. I just thought that I'd post it and share.

I've never seen this design anywhere. It's just a space saving design where the beckett is going through the collection cup and down the middle of the skimmer...

works great. comments appreciated

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/194Beckett_Front_small.jpg

Corey
12-09-2004, 12:24 AM
Looks incredible, I made a DIY venturi skimmer, works ok but not as good as yours looks, any specs, I would love to build one for myself.

Dez
12-09-2004, 12:37 AM
This was one of the first skimmers I've made. It's about 30 inches tall and done with 6 inch tubing. That's a 2" gate valve believe it or not, I got it free from somewhere. That's running on a SEn 900 pump which I believe only 900 gallon per hour pump not pressure rated. The beckett nozzle is a Wetlands beckett that Canadian Tire had, it was 14.99. I've made about 65-70 skimmers since then. I have now gone away from a lot of flanges for ease of cleaning etc..
des

Murminator
12-09-2004, 01:01 AM
I've made about 65-70 skimmers

:eek:

Buccaneer
12-09-2004, 01:08 AM
Hey Dez ... I had to put a drain back to the sump in the bottom of my Beckett housing because the Beckett would " spit " water ever so often and it would fill up the housing with water and shut down the Beckett because it could not draw any air. Have you had this problem and if so did you do something similar to fix it ?

Dez
12-09-2004, 01:13 AM
I have never had a beckett fill up with water on me. Hmmm...that seems really strange. I'm running a 51" tall beckett now and have never had a problem. My beckett is external now and I didn't even glue my fittings.. That seems strange, anybody else have Buck-a-neer's same problem?

des

Canadian Man
12-09-2004, 03:39 AM
I have the problem only when there's a snail stuck in the beckett.

Mine does fill with water but it does not effect the skimmer.

JohnM99
12-14-2004, 02:16 AM
Hi Dez,
Looks like you have a huge amount of experience with skimmers. Can I ask a question - almost all the DIY skimmers I have seen are Venturi or Beckett - why no needle wheel designs? Are they harder to make?
Thanks
John

Dez
12-14-2004, 02:40 PM
I think mostly people don't do needle wheels because of ease maybe. Then you have to take a bioball apart (at least that's what most people use) and then rig it up. Plus then you are only limited to one pump (chances are you modified the impeller of the pump you were going to use...and what if it doesn't work?) Impellers aren't cheap. Here is a picture of a large spray injection skimmer I made.... There is no beckett or venturi....very simple design actually... and works well..

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/194large_C_skimmer.jpg

Hope this helps, I don't know if my reply was correct because I've never bothered with needle wheel skimmers. I've owned them before but wasn't sold on them.

Des

JohnM99
12-14-2004, 03:39 PM
Thanks, Dez - you obviously do a lot of work on this. Do you sell any of your work?

There is an interesting experiment going on right now by some guys in LA - perhaps you have already seen it - they are comparing a bunch of different skimmers - here is the link to the thread on reefcentral - quite interesting, I think -
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=484915&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

Cheers
John

Dez
12-14-2004, 11:36 PM
I only own one skimmer that I made myself. The rest I have sold. I think I've made just over 70 skimmers about a dozen calcium reactors and a few kalk reactors. I used to make them just for fun and test them out and people would come over and just buy em... More of a challenge than anything. Thanks for the link.

dez

Buccaneer
12-14-2004, 11:42 PM
That " test " is not fair to the different types of skimmers ... they are using 3 different types at a time against each other ... they actually need to compare all the same type against each other and actually run tests for P04, nitrates etc ... these guys are basically " looking " at the skimmate to determine a winner :rolleyes:

Their " conclusions " as it stands wont tell you very much at all about the individual skimmers and their effectiveness

Delphinus
12-15-2004, 12:29 AM
And are they running the skimmers simultaneously on the same tank?

If so that's a completely rigged outcome ... two skimmers on the same water does not equate to "twice the skimming" ... the more powerful will outcompete the other. Thus it would look like some are not performing at all, which might lead you to conclude the skimmer is not good, which is not a fair assessment.

Richard Harker (I think .. maybe I'm wrong) once wrote an article about how he used two skimmers on his 4000g tank. When the smaller skimmer would actually start to produce skimmate, he would take that as an indicator that the first "needs to be cleaned".

JohnM99
12-15-2004, 01:15 AM
Seems to me like a very good experimental design - each of the skimmers is relatively small compared to the tank, in theory all 3 are not enough to rid the water of all skimmable material, and each is operating in parallel.
How does that not make sense?

Buccaneer
12-15-2004, 05:11 AM
Seems to me like a very good experimental design - each of the skimmers is relatively small compared to the tank, in theory all 3 are not enough to rid the water of all skimmable material, and each is operating in parallel.
How does that not make sense?

It would actually take longer to run a accurate test ... for starters you cant run 3 of them at the same time as Tony has already stated

next you would have to leave the system skimmer-less for the same amount of time in between testing skimmers ( say 2 weeks ) and make sure that the exact same amount of food/light etc was affecting each test ... then test each skimmer individually ... also some skimmers take longer to " dial-in " and require specific pumps to operate at optimum efficiency

Then they would have to setup proper tests before, during & after the experiment so that you can have a quantitative analysis of the results.

There is probably more that could be done to make it fair but that is all I can think of this late at night :razz: :mrgreen:

The " test " as it stands is a joke and not worthy of merit or consideration other than for the enjoyment of those doing it and the throngs of RC back clappers. :rolleyes:

JohnM99
12-15-2004, 01:04 PM
Your objections would make sense if they were going to compare skimmers between groups - but all they are going to do is pick the one that works the best within a group in terms of skimmate. Then they are going to do the same for each group. Granted, it is a bit crude, but at least it is do-able. You would need siginificant funding and a huge lab to do a really sophisticated study, but all they are trying to say is which skimmer works better under those conditions.

They are going to have trouble if they just compare volume of skimmate, and it would be better if they actually analyzed the content.

But, in my hours on the web trying to find objective evidence of which skimmer works well or better than others, I have come up pretty empty. Do you know of any good trial between skimmers? If you read around it is pretty hard to do any better than subjective impressions. I would really like to read some harder data, and if you know of any, that would be really appreciated.

Almost all of the information on boards like this or others is someone saying "yeah, I used it - it (fill in the blank - rocks or sucks).

It does seem to be a group of friends having some fun, as you say. I don't think the results will be publishable in a scientific journal, but I think it will be quite interesting.