Skimmer, Sump, Pump Build

Ahh the beauty of Thanksgiving.

 

Sparky.... Ive been ever so patiently waiting for a pic of that filter sock in action. who cares bout that cone shaped skimmer, some crazy iwaki external thingy, and what ever fancy chiller type thing your been talkin bout here on 3reef.

gotta have fun somehow on here....... PICS or it was all my imagination.

 

Here ya go, Patrick. Let me know if you need more. I just refilled my reactor with carbon, even after 4 rinses before putting into action, the filter sock is a little black.

 

Setup looks very nice reefsparky. keep us updated on how it works for you and things that you might do differently if you had to do again. Thanks for the pics

 

I just started running GFO and that stuff is messy. Kind of a PITA actually.

 

Not trying to hijack the thread just trying to help. What problems are you experiencing with the gfo. I rinsed mine to get rid of the dust. set on low flow 80 gph and have no issues what so ever.

 

I might have to change my baffles around a bit. I'm getting microbubbles in the return area. I've always built them the same, over the first, and under the second--but this time I think the water flow is so strong, that I either need a 3rd baffle, or I need to put my 2 existing baffles further apart.

I fill my reactor with dry media, and let 'er rip in a one gallon bucket of RO/DI water while another fills. I work this process through about 4 buckets of RO/DI water, discarding each as I go. It's always worked in the past (I thought) but maybe the filter sock is so fine (I think it's 400 microns) that it really filters out the fines that I've never seen in the past. I wonder if I should just rinse the stuff. ?? BTW, I'm convinced it's the carbon, and not the GFO I'm seeing in the sock.

 

Id bet on it being the carbon Reef Sparky , having rinsed both of these media more often than I care to recall, I always find that Carbon takes a bit more cleaning than GFO

Not sure if you have a brand preference? but I have found Sea Chems matrix carbon to be easier to rinse than other previous brands and it does not break up as easily as other types I have used before

Steve

 

Oh I just noticed fines settled to the bottom of the sump by the reactor. Rinsed it pretty good.

My Rox seems to rinse well, but don't see fines in the sump. Don't know what a filter sock would look like. I suppose if I was real concerned, I could run a fine sock to filter reactor effluent.

 

Here's the final set of pics now that everything is running as planned. The skimmer is a beast, as tatted4ever wrote up a fine review, I'm not planning on writing one--I agree with all his sentiment. Mine's still breaking in, and it's pulling at least 1/4" of very dark skimmate daily. You can see the color in the pics.

The filter sock was something I've never had experience with. I observe that while they're clean, they really polish the water. They're very efficient down to 400 microns, while letting water through quite readily. Once they're clogged, however, they become as permeable as plastic bags. I've yet to clean them, so I'd appreciate any advice on how to's. The LFS uses them and tells me they soak them in bleach water overnight, rinse well, and they're good to go. I've heard on 3reef of lots of folks washing them in the washing machine with no soap. The washing machine would be less hassle, but more energy. The bleach water would be messy and smelly, but sounds efficient. I own 3 for now so I have enough to wash two while the 3rd goes into action.

The reactor is plumbed to the manifold, along with the chiller and DT's return. It's nice to be rid of the 1000 GPH powerhead that used to feed the chiller. The reactor's little Rio 1800 is also gone. The old skimmer pump was apparently generating some heat too. As I mentioned, my chiller no longer comes on overnight. Also, after some "clocking," I see that the chiller now runs about 30% of the time while the halides are on. It used to run 40% of the time during the day, and it would cycle on ever couple of hours overnight.

Even with the new pump feeding the chiller and the reactor, I still have to throttle it back 40% lest the evaporation/ato chamber of the sump lose its level and the pump begins to run dry. I have one port left on the manifold, and I'm wondering if running a redundant loop to the evap/ato chamber would allow me to open the pump up a bit more. It's already moving a lot of water as it is, and I'm not sure the extra turnover would be necessary.

All in all, I'm happy with the new build. I had to mod the reactor, as it's a Kent Phos-Reactor and the dual ports neither swivel nor twist up or down. It comes glued in place with two downward-facing 90's. I cut in half the inlet, allowing me to turn the port 90 degrees to accomodate a pump coming from the side.

Everything is running as I hoped, I'm using a good deal less energy, and moving more water. You can see in the pics that the quad box is now completely vacant. There used to run cords there for all the retired pumps.