Wetworx Nano-skimmers!!!

[onthefly]

UTR - is that just the venturi kit? No NW? Wonder what a NW would do to the recirc design ?

[doody]

You might have to lower the outlet hole. One thing i did wrong on one i built is that if the two baffles on the sides of the injecter are right up against the cpvc, then no air flow can get through. Does that make sence? Basicly, you need to make sure there is room for air to flow from the air inlet around the pvc.

[doody]

You might have to lower the outlet hole. One thing i did wrong on one i built is that if the two baffles on the sides of the injecter are right up against the cpvc, then no air flow can get through. Does that make sence? Basicly, you need to make sure there is room for air to flow from the air inlet around the pvc.

[CollegeReef]

yeah, there is room, i am thinking that there is just no enough room, the surface tension is what is really pulling that water uphigher into the chamber. i might just try the aspirated model, using the air hose and valve the came with the MJ. so i just have to drill another peice of PVC!!

 

ill let everyone know how things go.

[Undertheradar]

onthefly...no venturi kit even...just a hole in the intake line to feed an air-line into...look at the pics of just the powerhead and the conduit...you'll see.

 

CollegeReef, lets go down the list...

Doody might be right, you might have to make your outlet larger & lower...but as I look at your injector...I DONT SEE AN AIR INLET?!?!?! You do have a way for the air to get in...dont you? I dont see it if you do. I think you have enough room for the air to get around the pipe...looks fine.

[pet_doc]

UTR,

 

I have an aquaclear 301 rated at 175 gph and would like to try my hand at a hang-on back venturi design.

 

I have thought about just doubling the width of your example to give specs of 2" x 3" x 14". Would that size be adequate? Thanks.

[onthefly]

PERFECTO!

[Undertheradar]

The only issue that I see is that the foam riser, will become more of a slot than a spout. Not that this is all bad, but the wider the skimmer gets, the more uneven the air flow pushing foam up will become. The slot as is is narrow and 1" long...if you keep this area just as narrow but 2" long, the air that is making the foam rise easily just goes around it. So my concern is that you might loose foam rising power.

 

If you can hold for a week or two, I will have a version with a removable cup that will allow you to make the skimmer 2" deep...much better design overall.

[pet_doc]

Hmmmm...to much dead space, huh? Yeah, I'll check back in. The removeable cup sounds like a great convenience factor. Thanks,

 

Jesse

[huari]

Finally got the HOB aspirating version working really well. It does produce a drier foam and has finer control from the air valve, but my old injection WetWorx skimmer is still working like a champ. I had trouble making a water tight hole on the HOB and found that CPVC pipe can be oversanded easily

 

One thing that helped alot was bringing the pump closer to the surface to get the dirtier water as show in the photo. The skimmate production increased after that and got darker.

 

I can't wait for the new design

 

I went the other way after reading A. Calfo on RC praising his old nielsen air drive 6 foot models. He referenced a some reefrontier.com posts of guys making skimmers using Sweetwater airstones with good results in terms of energy efficiency.

Seems like the newer stones don't need as much changing.

Also Chris Paris had some great articles on skimmer design and noted types of skimmer efficiency, though he didn't think airdriven was any more energy efficient: link

I still thought it a good idea though, adding an airstone to see.

[wannabeafarmer]

Been following this thread forever, UTR...Great work!

 

Are you gonna be posting some specs/plans for the new recirc. design...for those of us that are too Stoopid to figure it out from the pics. (namely...me!).

 

Thanks!

 

John

[huari]

here's the air driven mod to the WetWorx venturi.

I was going for energy efficiency by using a minijet 404 at 5 watts and a no-name air pump at ~5 watts.

Basically I increased the box height, added a baffle to block the airstone from the output and I cut the injector in half so as to only have one hole for input since I have a hard time getting the hole on the other side watertight.

The rotating vortex of bubbles runs countercurrent to the upflow of airbubble from the air pump. I tested it briefly and unfortunately it gave out too many microbubbles. After I make the outlet, I'm going to try it running the pump straight without aspirating air.

[huari]

Someday I'm gonna buy that wolfcraft sander UTR mentioned, until then its my lame dremelling. I wanted insert an elbow and have one hole for input thinking I'll go Remora style by drilling a hole atop the elbow and sticking a screw in there in case it ever needed cleaning, but I still liked UTR's design idea of making the injector replacable, hence the half cut injector.

 

Since I had to make the foam riser output hole bigger to accomodate the airstone, I'll probably make a cup on this one to make that hole smaller so it can collect crap. It will be good practice when or if UTR releases his next design (nudge,nudge, wink, wink)

[Undertheradar]

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=65566

is that one of you guys in that thread? I was browzin' and when I saw that in the competition I must admit, I got a fuzzy feeling and must have blushed (sounds cheezy, but its an engineer thing).

 

nice work huari. I like air powered skimmers...they really perform and are very low wattage in comparison. I wouldnt know what to do without my sanding bit from HD...just get it man, its less than $5...maybe less than $3 if I remember.

[phenom5]

stupid question...how does the standpipe relate to the water level? raising the standpipe raises or lowers the water level in the skimmer?

[Undertheradar]

yep

[phenom5]

sorry UTR, but yep what? raising the standpipe raises the water level in the skimmer...or raising the standpipe lowers the water level in the skimmer.

[huari]

finally finished the airstone mod after supporting the output and making a lazy collection "spoon"

[huari]

it's less than 30 mins in the water but i have the following observations in case anyone else wants to try this:

• there's much more finer air flow control with the rheostat of the air pump
  
• unfortunately even with a finepore stone the bubble are on the larger side kinda like the injection version
  
• aspirating version has much more finer bubbles
  
• I'm running the air pump on 'low' setting since any higher the top of my foam head overflows into the collection area
  
• even at 18" in skimmer height, I can understand why more height is better for an airstone skimmer
  
• I'm running the pump straight and the injector is just the cutoff 1/2" cpvc and that has cleared the microbubbles
  
• after the skimmer is broken in, I hope the production is like the injector version
  
• WetWorx's design is so versatile, I now have airstone, injection, and aspirating venturi, gonna try recirc next
  

[huari]

Because I set my riser output width so wide near 1/2" most of my skimmate is dry and pasty dirtying the inside walls of the skimmer. So a collection cup is not really needed and in my laziness to forego the walls of the collection cup, I get a spoon. Even with my AquaC Remora, I've found that all that is really need is something for the skimmate to 'cling' to. I never really had that much skimmate volume with the Remora but rather a thicker paste. So with that lesson, I'll go narrower next time. If I made the riser output width narrower like the directions call for, I probably would get wetter and perhaps more effective skimmate production.

 

here's a pic showing the full white column of foam from the airstone just like the injection and asiprating versions only the bubbles appear larger

[huari]

oh one last thing: that airline tubing is such a frigging pain, I'll probably have to drill a hole in the top so I can keep the skimmer foam covered.

 

I may convert this one back to an aspirating version and hope that extra baffle I made to block the airstone from the output doesn't divert too many micros back into the display.

 

Sometimes over-tweaking an already good thing is a not a good idea.

 

But damn this DIY experimenting is fun and I hope more folks will post what works or what didn't.

[pet_doc]

Huari: try a limewood airstone and see if that doesn't produce smaller bubbles.

[Undertheradar]

phenom5,

sorry 'bout that, if you raise the standpipe, the water level in the skimmer goes up. If you lower it, the water level goes down.

 

huari, the height isnt the only factor with bubble control. It does little to make the skimmer 24" high if the cross-sectional area is so small that bubbles dont have enough space to rise back up. This is where making the main chamber wider helps.

 

"finally finished the airstone mod after supporting the output and making a lazy collection "spoon"" - huari

 

bet you cant wait for the collection cup version, lol.

[phenom5]

sorry 'bout that, if you raise the standpipe, the water level in the skimmer goes up. If you lower it, the water level goes down.

 

cool, thanks. that's what i thought, but with the MJ400 i had the air valve all the way open and the "T" of the standpipe attached directly to the outlet and the skimmer was still overflowing. i switched out the pump for a microjet 450. seems to be working better, but now i'm not getting much...very little white foam. i'm going to run it for another day or 2 and see if it breaks in and starts producing some better skimmate. if not i'll try and adjust the height.

[phenom5]

okay guys question. i ran the skimmer for about 5 hours on Sat & Sun. i had to go to work and shut it down b/c i wasn't completely comfortable leaving running for ~9 hrs, it started skimming really wet after it was on for a couple of hours on Sat, and i didn't really want to come home from work to find half my tanks water on my floor. anyway, i fired it up on Mon morning and it has been running since. do you guys think i should raise the water level or do you think it just needs some more break in time? i'm looking to skim dry.

 

here's a shot of how it looks for most of the time...

 

 

but every once in a while the foam builds up like this...