Quick pic before assembly
 

Here is a dry run at assembling the new skimmer. Hopefully it will be finished this week-end. It stands 49" tall and uses 8" tubing.

http://www.islandreef.ca/post/newskim.jpg

thats a nice looking beckett holder :lol: you going to flange it on or just glue it to the tube? won't be easy to get the tube off on yours like mine will.

guess I better get mine finnished.. might be easyer to finnish it than to clean out the old becket :rolleyes:

Steve

Steve, I thought about that, and decided to put a fitting inline between that darn fine looking beckett holder and the box. That will make it easier to remove for cleaning.

WOW :eek:

What pump are you using to drive that? I was thinking about building a 30" beckett with 8" tubing but wasn't sure if my T3 pump would have enough umph.

I'm usig a MAK 4 to run it, which I think should be fine. I hope :rolleyes:

Would you be able to post some pics of the beckett holder/chamber. Need to DIY one myself.

actualy that beckett holder is my design and there are pics of it in a old thread of mine somewhere in the DIY forum. I am going to be making another batch of these in there near future also.

Steve

It looks crooked...... :confused: and a Mak 4 will never do it.

:biggrin:

It is crooked, and the MAK will have to do for now. It will be an aerofoamer knockoff, with the swirling water column. Stephane had good luck with the MAK 4 on his, so we'll give it a go. :razz:

Mak 4
 

I built mine out of 6" tubes and it stands almost 4 feet tall. I currently have a mak4 and a mag 18 on a dual beckett system and it skims AWESOME. I shut my mag 18 off for a few days just to see if I could run it on just the mak4 and the foam would not rise past the riser.

Re: Mak 4
 

Well aren't you just a ray of sunshine?? :biggrin: If the MAK won't work, I guess I'll have to upgrade, but I'll play with it first. Remember, the lower column will be partially full of water, so height is relative to water column height.

I am sure a Mak 4 will work. I have a 52 inch tall Beckett that I just built and you won't believe what runs it. I'm using a velocity T3.. that's only an 800gph pump that's pressure rated and it skims very well. My skimmer is all out of 6" tube..

Des

Looking good :exclaim:

Where are you getting your bulkhead fittings from?

The local plumbing supply company. Kinda industrial looking, but they work.

So here is a new pic of the skimmer almost complete. Cup drain and valve need to be connected, and then it gets hooked up.
It's beside my current skimmer, which I thought was huge when I built it 2 years ago!!

http://www.islandreef.ca/post/newskim2.jpg

Ok good, now that you have yours all glued together I can Finnish mine now and make it 4" taller than yours :mrgreen:


what did you come up with for a support for the Beckett riser tube?

Steve

Hey Brad nice DIY. Just one question, could you explain why the intake line from the beckett is elbowed up into the first riser tube?

Thanks
Jason

Jason, the input is directed into the foam chamber as done in the aerofoamer style skimmer It causes a swirling of the water in the chamber. Look at http://www.reefconcepts.com/products...ers/800series/
for more details. This style skimmer gets good ratings compared to other skimmers.

this may be a little premature. but
 

well the question begs. When you selling your old skimmer and how much?

Re: this may be a little premature. but
 

Sorry, it's already sold.

Wow, that's a big skimmer...

Why a single injector though? You could easily go with a second injector on something that size. Maybe something like a second bulkhead and second 45-degree nozzle adjacent to the first?

Tony, not sure why a second would be desired. I think one will work just fine. The pump may not be strong enough, but a single beckett can inject sufficient air into a water column this size. A second injector would also need a second bulkhead, injector housing, tubing, ass't plumbing, etc. I'd also have to run a second pump to benefit at all from it, so you can see the cost goes up quite a bit for little, if any benefit.

I can understand the philosophy of not wanting a second pump..

But your assertion that it has no benefit surprises me? Is this commonly known now, or can you point me to any documentation that shows a second injector has no benefit over one?

I didn't realize this. I had been considering building a dual injector unit, but I'm happy to rethink that goal if it can be shown to be not that much more effective.

Tony, I guess what I really mean is that, IMO, there is little benefit for the added expense. I've seen skimmers this size running one beckett, and they ran great. Would a second injector add more bubbles? Probably to a degree, but not worth the extra $300+ it would cost to add it.
Now, it's entirely possible that once I fire this up, I may feel differently, but right now I'm optimistic that one will suffice. IMO. :razz:

When do we get pics of this baby in action?

Well, if all goes well, later tonight.

oops... should have read all the posts. :redface: :mrgreen:

sweet!

jayson at saltwater connection in winnipeg has a humungous skimmer like that..maybe even 2, been a while since i went there.. but I kid you not it was like 7' tall.

he makes his own -- a buddy of mine here in regina has one by swc powered by a mak4. makes me wish i knew how to work with acrylic and actually had lots on hand. these skimmers look fairly simple to construct with the right plumbing and air injection things. :lol:

Well, the beast is running, but the air inlet is too small for the amount of water column. I'm going to add a second (or bigger) inlet this week sometime. I had to make up a bucket of water just to have enough in the sump to fill this sucker!! :razz:

I can see that baby holding 5 gallons or so!

Any updates?

Yes, we need more pics!! :mrgreen:

I'll post some this weekend!

Ummm, is it this weekend yet?

:)

S**T, sorry, I just cleaned it an hour ago. Absolutely filthy. I'll take a shot at dinner tomorrow to show the thing after 24hrs.

OK, here's the cup after 24 hours. Second shot is the whole skimmer stuffed into my stand. No room left for the collection jug!!

http://www.islandreef.ca/post/cup24.jpg

http://www.islandreef.ca/post/stuffedskim.jpg

Nice, how do you like it so far? That looks dirty already after 24hrs.

Jack, I think I need to get more air into the thing. I may have been wrong about 2 becketts, or at least the pump size. Although, given how big the cup is, it is pretty filthy after only 1 day.

I have 3/8" JG valves but don't have the tap and dye yet.

I would rather run one big pump than two. So far is it taking out more or equal ammounts of skimmate as your old one?

What about the quality of the skimmate?