Prizim Skimmer that Works!!!

[UnderWorldAquatics]

I have modified a regular sized prizim skimmer with the turbo impeller to skim very well at full flow without putting any bubbles back into the tank. I will try to get pics soon, the mod makes the collection cup a little taller and also uses a small acrylic baffle box that gets a replaceable piece of cut out filter media. It has been tested on a couple of tanks so far, ranging from 108 to 155 gallons, it has polished up all tanks nicely. Has been pulling out about 2+ cups of very dark very stinky skimate for a couple days then levels out at about 1/2-1 cup of skimate per day. If only red sea would have made something that worked out of the box.

[Aquattro]

Kyle, any update on those pics? Curious to see your mods!

[UnderWorldAquatics]

Sorry it took me so long to get pics, but hopefully here they are...
I used a piece of 2"od acrylic that was 1 15/16" long and siliconed it into the recess under the collection cup, then I slid a piece of 2' scheldue 40 pvc that is 1 3/4" long over the piece of acrylic, I put a bit of silicone between the two as there was a little play... I also added an extra o-ring to the skimmer body, the pvc slides over the neck of the skimmer body and stops when it meets up with the acrylic tube inside the pvc. Setup like this you can open up the flow controll on the skimmer all the way, for bubbles I will get pics soon of the buble trap I made out of some scrap acrylic and filter floss... it works very well, seemed to handle a well stocked 135gallon without problem, might want to add a fitting to drain the collection cup into a remote collection jug as it fills the collection cup almost to the top everyday with a dark green soup.


[img]=http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/130prizimskimmer-med.jpg?6258[img]

[img]=http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/130prizmaddon.jpg?2226[img]

[img]=http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/130insideprizm-med.jpg?7358[img]

[Stretch]

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/130prizimskimmer-med.jpg?6258

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/130prizmaddon.jpg?2226

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/130insideprizm-med.jpg?7358


thats quite the prism :lol:

[UnderWorldAquatics]

lol, thanks, Ive been trying to do that for the last 10 mins...
how???

[Stretch]

well at first you had this

=http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/130insideprizm-med.jpg?7358]

now i you change it too this

[img]=http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/130insideprizm-med.jpg?7358[img]

but what you forgot was the " / " at the end...

[Jack]

So, basically, you just extended the riser?

[UnderWorldAquatics]

yeah, pretty much..... ever turned your prizm fully open, it just overflows right away, you have to turn them so far down that the water is just trickling, now it runs great wide open... I played around with a bunch of heights, this one worked best

[Jack]

Cool! But it's still a Prism. :mrgreen:

Just buggin.

[BCOrchidGuy]

Just checked my prizm, not much dry gunk but some wet stuff... turned it down... sheesh, so prizm isnt a great skimmer huh.. and I spent $40 on it.

Doug

[Skimmerking]

want to sell it . :razz:

[canadawest]

Ahhh, I remember the first 12 months I had my tank running with a little Prizm skimmer and I thought it was the cats-meow.

Now that it has long since been replaced with a modified Red Sea Berlin Hang-on, that little Prizm just seems so useless.

Not a bad skimmer for smaller (50gal or less) tanks in factory configuration, but with that clever mod it might just keep up with slightly larger or higher organics tanks.

[martym]

I've got the prizm pro deluxe and love it. It out skimmed the Berlin XL that was in a sump. It is on a 75 gallon now( prizm).

[sumpfinfishe]

Hi Kyle, after reading about your mod upgrade to the Prizm skimmer a few days ago, I was interested to say the least. Not that I haven't been happy with my skimmer, but over the last year or so I have basically maxed out on my bio load. I was having concerns that my Prizm skimmer may not be able to keep up any longer-until after reading this post that is. I was having the same problems with flow also, as more load was added to the tank, I also wanted to turn up the skimmer above 65%, but if I did it would simply run wet due to the short collection tube.

So after Al (my roomie) cut a few pieces of pvc it wasn't long before he had the thing all glued together. Now, 36hrs later the new mod is working like a charm :biggrin:. I'm really happy with the increased flow as well the tube now has enough room to accomodate this increase.
Thanks for the great mod Kyle and to Al for building it for me :mrgreen:
Here's a few pics too :biggrin:
http://www3.telus.net/sumpfinfishe/images/skimA.jpg
http://www3.telus.net/sumpfinfishe/images/skimB.jpg

[UnderWorldAquatics]

your welcome....
glad it worked well for you, I found that the mod made it worth keeping
Ill have to post pics of the intake muffler, and the bubble trap.....

[sumpfinfishe]

Wow it must have been a flashback or something :rolleyes: , I just realized that Tony had posted a reply to my question about this skimmer- what over two years ago :eek:

Tony Wrote:
Since our conversation I've been thinking about this skimmer some.

Realistically all my comsplaints can be traced back to one design shortcoming: the reaction chamber is too small.

What happens for me (and others) is that you need to crank back the water volume to something like "5% open" in order to prevent the air/water foam from rising too high in the collection cup and spilling over into the cup with perfectly clean water as skimmate.

But the problem for me is that the water flow is so cranked back that air can get into the U-tube, and breaks the siphon within a matter of 12 hours or so. A skimmer is no good if it shuts itself down, no matter how good that foam is.

Thus, there are two modifications I will suggest for anyone who has a Prism and isn't 100% happy with it.

The first is the easy one. Put an airline valve on the air intake. Turn up the water volume, and slowly increase the air until you get some foam. Just don't overdo the air, or else you'll overwhelm that little reaction chamber. Here is the key. You need a top-quality air valve. Those plastic cheapy jobs aren't going to give a fine enough adjustment. What will happen is suddenly they allow too much air in as you slowly open them ... and then the fine adjustments are defeated and the skimmer overwhelms itself.

The only thing I don't really like about this idea is that any time you allow more water through the skimmer, the higher the water column will rise into the reaction chamber, thus giving you less volume in that chamber for good foam production.

This leads me into my second idea (which I haven't tried yet, because I'm going to give idea #1 a solid week or two to see how well it plays out long-term).

The problem is the reaction tube is too small. So, why not extend the reaction tube? It would just be a matter of finding a tube of the appropriate diameter, and you can place this "riser extender" between the skimmer and the collection cup. Perhaps a length of gravel vacuum tubing would work (I haven't looked into this yet). If I try this then I'll post some pictures in the DIY forum. But this way we could have the water AND air fully open. I figure that so long as the tube is long enough the contact time should be long enough and give a really high density skimmate. It wouldn't look too pretty but then again function is more important than esthetics the way I see it

[Delphinus]

At first I was like ... who is this Tony character? .... Then I realized, hey wait, I DID write that. :crazyeye: :drinking: Wow, solid memory, Rich! :lol:

I never did try the riser extension thing (the air valve worked well enough for me at the time) but I'm glad that someone else did and that the idea has merit after all.

[NTidd]

The problem I have with the skimmer is cleaning the dang thing, is there a way to do this successfully? I would like to make this mod but I'm not quite sure where the bubble trap is? I think I'm missing it...

[UnderWorldAquatics]

for cleaning the skimmer, I only take the top collection cup off and rinse it in the sink, then put it back on, I dont really clean anything else on it, Ill clean the intake tube every couple months...

I havent posted any pics of my bubble trap yet, I think I see that someone used some foam pieces in the output for bubble controll in the pics posted below mine

[sumpfinfishe]

That's right Kyle, two pieces of foam in the output really helps cut back on the tiny bubbles. However this is temporary until I can get a peek at your acrylic bubble trap design :mrgreen:

Do you have any pics yet :razz:

[UnderWorldAquatics]

no pics yet, a buddy has been borrowing the prizm, I need to go over to his place sometime soon and take some pics

[NTidd]

bump

[Invigor]

i'm interested in the pics, is there a way to re-post them kyle?? :mrgreen:

thanks

[rums]

I took a shot in the dark and guessed that 'sumpfinfishe' went from Telus to Shaw and was lucky, so here is the pic of his mod:

http://members.shaw.ca/sumpfinfishe/images/skimA.jpg

[Skimmerking]

I bought a prizm pro deluxe off of TATOO AKA Lawerance.

I went over to FALTLANDER'S house (Doug's) And hooked up the skimmer, some quiet and ran retty good. We turned off the beckett on his 170 and let the little monster run by it's self. After 2 hrs after i left. Doug dumped out 1 cup full and it was starting to get some dark gunk.

Heading out to his house on Fri to watch it again
well i have a good investment i love the skimmer

thanks again Lawerance..

mike

[kuatto]

I've been running my Prizm with Tony's mod(extended reaction chamber)for awhile with great results,lots of real dark skim and good foam.

[UnderWorldAquatics]

Tony's mod(extended reaction chamber).

do you have pics of it, or are you talking about the same mod that I did that is depicted in the pic above???

[kuatto]

Hmm..I can't remember if it was yours or Tony's(Marine newbie actually put it together for me)either way,it works great :biggrin:

[UnderWorldAquatics]

ok, I was just wondering if it was the same mod, or a different one?.....

[Delphinus]

I think it's the same... :razz:

[Chaloupa]

Hey, I know that this is an old subject...and I am just wondering if you can send me the info on modifications? I have a Prism and it sucks like all the rest of them....poorly! I would like to modify it to actually work, and I paid a sweet penny for it....MUCH too MUCH...so any help if anyone is out there with this info would be appreciated! PM me please

[sumpfinfishe]

Here's the mod instructions from page 1, I will see if I can find some old pics laying around the hard drive :biggrin: Rum's was right, after switching to Shaw I didn't transfer over all the existing pics from my old webpage account.

I used a piece of 2"od acrylic that was 1 15/16" long and siliconed it into the recess under the collection cup, then I slid a piece of 2' scheldue 40 pvc that is 1 3/4" long over the piece of acrylic, I put a bit of silicone between the two as there was a little play... I also added an extra o-ring to the skimmer body, the pvc slides over the neck of the skimmer body and stops when it meets up with the acrylic tube inside the pvc. Setup like this you can open up the flow controll on the skimmer all the way, for bubbles I will get pics soon of the buble trap I made out of some scrap acrylic and filter floss... it works very well, seemed to handle a well stocked 135gallon without problem, might want to add a fitting to drain the collection cup into a remote collection jug as it fills the collection cup almost to the top everyday with a dark green soup.


http://members.shaw.ca/sumpfinfishe/images/1-17-4skimA.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/sumpfinfishe/images/1-17-4skimC.jpg

[Chaloupa]

Very cool....any further information etc would be highly appreciated. Mine is on our FOWLR 50g with 13g sump and it doesn't perform. Will try any modifications that you have had success with! Thank you so much

[fakename]

Any chance of re-posting the pics....they're no longer working. I'd love to get a couple of more months out of my prism before ponying up for a remora...

[Abbyreefer]

LOL... I'm looking to sell my prizm delux because I bought an ASM G2 skimmer, if only I knew before what I know now :) anyone wanna buy a skimmer lol...
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