air pump into skimmer?

So I have a line on my skimmer that draws in air into the pump.. would it work better if it put an air pump blowing air into the pump instead of just using that pump to suck in air?

 

hmmm that's a good question. I've tried it and wasn't that excited about it. It depends on if the output of the pump is higher than the draw on the skimmer pump

 

Thats what I did on a cheap Odyssea skimmer awhile back. Worked good as long as I adjusted the airflow with a valve, too much air and the pump ran very loud. But there was a huge improvement on waste removal.

 

the problem i was having was for some reason water would get back washed into the air line so it was not drawing any air in.. i am thinking of taping another air line into it as well and using 2.. mainly because the air pump im using has two out puts.

 

put a strainer on your pump. You'll see a huge difference.

 

its using one right now.. i just think double the air might be beneficial.. could probably lower the water level and get more oxygen in

 

forcing air into a skimmer will produce more scfh which is a good thing as long as you dont ckoke out the pump

 

I took a skimmer and modified it. I took apart the pump and drilled a few holes into the impeller. That increased a large amount of turbulence. At that time I still wasnt satisfied.

I then thought about injecting oxygen into the skimmer shaft. I went ahead and drilled a hole the same size as the air hose and put an air stone in the protein skimmer that way. After trying different types of airstones, came to find the best one was a porcelin air diffuser (wood and ceramic stones gave bubbles that were a little tooo large, porcelin gave clouds of bubbles) I went to the local pet store and bought a stronger air pump and walaaaaa this skimmer needs to be emptied just about daily. Not because water is flowing into the cup but because the nasty foam is filling it up with skimmate.

Testing and trial and error are your best option I think. It worked for me.