DIY Skimmer...venturi troubles

[Bryceandmandy]

Hey all, i suppose i should preface this with the economy is garbage and i dont make enough money. that being said, i made my own skimmer lol. I took the stock skimmer that comes with the older Proclear 200 wet/dry and glued a piece of acrylic to the bottom to effectively seal it. now my question is whether or not to intstall the venturi before or after the pump itself. when i put it before the pump i get lots and lots of bubbles along with skimmage and toooons of noise. if i put it after i get water shooting out of the venturi tube...any ideas? thanks!

 

[masterswimmer]

Hi B & M, the venturi is supposed to inject air into the system. Placing it before the pump is appropriate. That is the reason certain skimmers use needlewheel impellers, to chop up the air infused into the water and create even more, finer bubbles. What you'll find useful is adding a piece of vinyl tubing with a plastic silencer on it to the venturi nipple. The silencer should be above the water line and it should quiet the noise you're currently hearing.

Hope this helps,
Russ

 

[Bryceandmandy]

hey russ thanks for the great info and quick response. the noise that im hearing is a noise that is similar to a grinding noise. i looked at the impeller and the slot where the impeller is housed and i found i have a slight chip inside, i figure thats the source of the sound rather than the air bubbles being rocketed around the impeller.

 

[masterswimmer]

I would be willing to bet you're right. The chip in the impeller or housing can cause an imbalance and/or uneven turbulence. I would definitely fix that (new piece) as well as adding the vinyl tubing and silencer to the venturi. The combination of the fix and modification could possibly quiet the skimmer to a very low level.

Russ

 

[Bryceandmandy]

i have the vinyl and silencer from my fishtank graveyard as mandy calls it. i have all kinds of stuff i pack-ratted away. the problem with this pump is that there is no way to fix the chip on the inside. so im totally up a river with no paddle. i gave away all my other pumps ...man i hate this hobby sometimes lol.

 

[Audi0s]

Man up deal with it! Badass cars are loud! Loud fish tanks are BA!!!! lol

 

[masterswimmer]

Man up deal with it! Badass cars are loud! Loud fish tanks are BA!!!! lol

FINALLY, someone with a sense of reality. I can't tell you how many people come to me and say they want a fish tank and want it next to their headboard and want it silent! :banghead:
I always tell these people they are asking for a tank full of moving water (100's of gallons per hour), motors, pumps, skimmers, reactors, chillers/compressors, and it just isn't a realistic expectation to have a silent tank with all that equipment.

Thank you Audi0s.

Russ

 

[JonnyJ]

FINALLY, someone with a sense of reality. I can't tell you how many people come to me and say they want a fish tank and want it next to their headboard and want it silent! :banghead:
I always tell these people they are asking for a tank full of moving water (100's of gallons per hour), motors, pumps, skimmers, reactors, chillers/compressors, and it just isn't a realistic expectation to have a silent tank with all that equipment.

Thank you Audi0s.

Russ

HAHA im one of those guys

Truth is my tank is right next to my bed and it is running Virtually silent and have tons of people that can agree. Good equipment and a good plumber [richie lol] can make things quite.

Dorso pipe & valves,Filter Sock,Tubing instead of pvc, Eheim pump, Swc Skimmer, Leds.

The only noise i hear at all is my LED driver fan on my solaris.


! lol

 

[JavyJaverson]

there are lots of things you can do to silence your tank, i for one have done all of them and my tank is pretty quiet for a 240 gal. For starters you can incorporate a bean/animal type overflow, this will quiet a tank down tremendously. Other things off the top of my head would be: sound proof your stand, Filter the skimmer intake with cotton, replace hard tubing with the flexible type, down size the over sized return pumps we all love, placing a ziplock bag full of sand under pumps, styrofoam under sumps, submerge drain pipes... it's possible to have an extremely silent tank.

 

[masterswimmer]

HAHA im one of those guys

Truth is my tank is right next to my bed and it is running Virtually silent and have tons of people that can agree. Good equipment and a good plumber [richie lol] can make things quite.

Dorso pipe & valves,Filter Sock,Tubing instead of pvc, Eheim pump, Swc Skimmer, Leds.

The only noise i hear at all is my LED driver fan on my solaris.


! lol

The operative part of your short rant is the highlighted section, '......it is running VIRTUALLY silent'. Which means in English, that there IS some noise that comes from your system. Not much, but some. Otherwise you would have said your system is running TOTALLY silent. But you didn't. It is this level of virtually silent that so many people want to bring down to nothing. Zero noise, zero decibels.

there are lots of things you can do to silence your tank, i for one have done all of them and my tank is pretty quiet for a 240 gal. For starters you can incorporate a bean/animal type overflow, this will quiet a tank down tremendously. Other things off the top of my head would be: sound proof your stand, Filter the skimmer intake with cotton, replace hard tubing with the flexible type, down size the over sized return pumps we all love, placing a ziplock bag full of sand under pumps, styrofoam under sumps, submerge drain pipes... it's possible to have an extremely silent tank.

And here it is again, and it will follow again, and again, and again. Your 240g is 'PRETTY QUIET for a 240 gal.' Again, the only way to read that sentence is, your 240g system although it is 'PRETTY QUIET', it is NOT 100% noise free!

And you conclude your short rant with the quote, 'it's possible to have an extremely silent tank.'. But once again, I don't hear you saying it is perfectly quiet, meaning there is still albeit some noise, but there is still some!

I am not saying it is impossible to build/plumb a system that is quiet. We do that on every job we install. They're all quiet. However, as I pointed out with each of the quotes above, the installs might have a low level 'white noise' that is totally acceptable. The person who asks me to install them a system that is 100% SILENT while eating dinner in their dinning room, where the display tank is located, will get one of two replies from me. One, can we use a basement underneath your tank, or a room adjacent to the dining room to install the necessary equipment to run your 350g display? If they say no, then I won't accept a job from someone with unrealistic expectations, because I can absolutely design/build/plumb a system that is virtually silent, but having all the equipment in the same room, I cannot design/build/plumb a system that is perfectly silent. My understanding that the distinction between what sounds so very close as virtually silent vs. perfectly silent is a report to consumer affairs about misleading sales techniques :irked: :shocked1:

Hope that helps to clarify my position on this,
Russ

 

[Bryceandmandy]

Great. Thanks guys, esp you john lol. See how often i come to hang now. I guess i should have just said its in the girlfriends room. Therefore noise is bad, i personally dont mind it and realize its part of having a tank. a noisy overflow box is an issue lol i understand its gonna generate noise but ive been around tanks a while and that noise isnt right.