Skimmer question/observation

Quite a while back (a couple of years) I took the standard airline tubing off of my skimmer, drilled out a new venturi on there and placed 1/2 inch (I believe) tubing. I will say that it seems like the skimmer was pulling more air but not really doing it for me. (remember, my tank ran empty for 1.5 years without any life or attention) With all of this being said, I seriously only ran the bigger tubing for a while. Anyway, last night, I replaced the venturi with the old one and used the standard, smaller airline. My skimmer is pulling the worst filth, over the last 24 hours, I have ever seen. By the way, this is the classic Octopus Skimmer (8 " body) with the octopus otp 3000 pump. For some reason, I always thought more air meant better skimming. Apparently, that's not the case here. Can someone give me some insight as to why this would be? I was hoping for some of the equipment gurus....gcarroll.....could chime in.

 

I am guessing you were not getting the right air to water ratio. I am sure these are calculated based on the pump/impeller/reaction chamber combination.

 

That's what I'm thinking.

 

Hmmm, any idea what this calculation would be? You've got me thinking I need to adjust my air intake on my skimmer now.

 

I modded my air intake line with an adjustable simple valve I got when I bought my Maxijet power heads/fans. You know they come with a fan, or a Power head by changing the impeller?

Anyways, it also comes with a treaded adjustment knob, that simply put in the upper end of my air intake hose- simple, quick and easy.

So now, by reducing the air intake slightly, it still skims, but the water column is higher, allowing you to open the flow valve more, thus skimming more water per hour.

My skimmer is the amazing, yet budget SC150- shich I think they now call the SC303? or something like that.

Unless you chocked down the water column more, letter more air in would drop the column and nothing much would make it to the top to skim out.

 

I gotcha, I have a Warner Marine mf161 with an air adjust on the silencer, I started playing with that and will see what happens. so far....its good.

 

Bottom line is you can't process water if you are not moving any water.

Skimmers are not cookie cutters and bigger is not better. The body and neck need to be tuned/balanced with the water and air. A 1:1 ratio of air to water is good... some skimmers do this, other approach it..... but all the increased air you jam in there, is at the expense of the water you are trying to clean.

Jamming more air into a skimmer does not clean the water better if the skimmer was tuned/balanced properly to begin with.

Even doing simple adjustment... moving the skimmer up and down in the tank changes the water/air ratio. There is usually enough range for adjustment with water level, out put changes.

 

All the people on here who are so good with equipment and this is all the discussion drummed up here?

 

I just restarted mine too Daniel....For the first month and a half, my skimmer was putting out a ton of skimmate. I had to empty it every day. After 2 mo, it is slowing down.