Feeding a Modded ASM Skimmer

[Christeon]

I modded my ASM G3 to recirculate and it is now fed with a 1/2" hose and gate valve teed off from my return pump. I was under the impression that it was bad to skim after the refugium because you'll skim off the pods and semi defeat it's purpose. Also, now that it has been modded to recirculate does the water level outside the skimmer matter at all? Feed line comes in the main body a little more than an inch below the upper cone. It would be real convinient for me to make the section where the skimmer is, the part of the sump that the water evaporates from.

 

[Christeon]

Looking back at my hasty post before my questions aren't very clear.

Will it be ok to plumb the feed into the skimmer from the return pump or should I feed it somehow from the overflows?

And would the Water level outside the skimmer matter now that it is somewhat sealed?

 

[SnowManSnow]

I feed mine with a small maxijet and a tube directly from the sump.

BTW im in CENTRE alabama.. nice to see a neighbor.
b

 

[bleedingthought]

Looking back at my hasty post before my questions aren't very clear.

Will it be ok to plumb the feed into the skimmer from the return pump or should I feed it somehow from the overflows?

And would the Water level outside the skimmer matter now that it is somewhat sealed?

I've got the same skimmer, here. Duane (Trido) has modded his ASM to the highest level possible. For me, when time comes to mod mine (real soon now! ), I will be feeding it from a tee in the drain. Reason being that I'm skimming directly from the display and getting rid of any necessary powerheads (which cuts down on noise, temperature rise, wasted energy, possible stray voltage, pump servicing, pump failure, among others ) and also gets rid of the need to tee off from other pumps, like your return pump, which is wasting energy and possible total flow from your pump. But no, that shouldn't be a problem as long as you have the return set at a reasonable flow, of course. I'd shoot for 250-350GPH into it.

And since the water level doesn't affect the perfomance of the skimmer anymore, you can run it at any level lower than your output. I wouldn't run these skimmers external, though. I don't think you plan on doing that, but they will probably eventually leak.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm in the same boat, got a ASM-g3, got all the seals that you need, just need to drill the sucker, but unsure how I'll feed it, I probably won't feed it via the return, probably will simply tee off my drain. Although I do have a smaller sedra I might just use as the feed pump.

Then again I'm unsure how much additional skimming power this will give it, it already skims fairly nicely.

 

[trido]

I feed my G-3 from one of the overflows of the display. The other overflow feeds my remote fuge. My skimmer used to sit on a DIY stand 6" deep in my sump I have since removed the stand and it sits in 8" of water. It actually seems to skim better in the deeper water.

IMO now that the skimmer is a recirc the water on the outside isnt as critical but for some reason, in my case anyway, it did affect performance. Most likely it has to do with my skimmer drain system.

If you dont mind hacking up your skimmer a little bit more to better your performance. Here are a couple more DIY mods to juice it up. I have done all three and my bubble/water line is nearly non-existant. I have it set at about three inches into the actual body. I had no Idea the skimmer could perform like this in its first six months of life.

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewforum.p ... 0&start=50
venturi mod
http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=95783
Meshweel/ Threadwheel modl. I had had the best result with 3-M abrasive cleaning pads.
Beware, If you leave the cleaning pad too big you will literally sand a hole in the side of your sedra impeller housing and blow micro bubbles out the back side of the pump.

 

[fungia]

it is best to feed skimmer from the overflow or use a small pump to pump water from the overflow area. that is the dirtiest water and you also dont want to skim your refugium water. in recirc, the water level outside the skimmer matters alot less.

 

[Christeon]

Great answers from everyone, any picture of how you guys plumb the overflows. Do you just tee off of it? Do you put a valve to restrict the flow out of it. I have a 1" return in both back corners. Or is the flow rate not need to be a constant.

 

[bleedingthought]

Tee off the drain and put a valve on both ends.

 

[pperez]

Here's how i fed mine.

 

[bleedingthought]

Two questions, what kind of reducer is that going to the smaller ball valve? And what the heck does that elbow on on the valve do?

 

[pperez]

That's just a 1" to 1/2" reducer from home depot. The elbow there does nothing, it's just for support. I had it laying around and used it to keep the weight off the bulkhead. That's all. The small ball valve i use when i am cleaning the skimmer, i just shut it off. The smaller green valve i use if i have to fine tune the flow to the skimmer. HTH

 

[Christeon]

Yes very helpful and thanks for the pics, i have a gate valve for it already, I have never had good luck controlling flow with a ball valve.

Someone needs to design a universal sarcasm smiley, I took comment about the elbow as a joke myself.

 

[Anonymous]

So when you do a recirc mod, do you have a venturi input on the recirculating pump as well? The more I read this thread the more I want to poke a hole in my g3, and I'm wondering if I simply continue to throw air into it with my sedra 5k

 

[pperez]

The recirculation pump will stay as is with the venturi. The only difference is that now the pump is getting the water from inside the skimmer body, so there's very little/no head pressure. The feed is just to get water into the chamber. The pump will simply continue to recycle the water from within.

Here's another example of my skimmer. Now keep in mind this is an Euroreef, not asm.

The feed elbow was turned to the side for gravity feeding.

 

[Christeon]

I did mine just like this guys.

http://sdreefs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3753

Basically you need a uniseal for the output on the sedra and to extend the the output a little. I just bought a union sawed a little off both sides of it, sawed the straight pipe leaving enough to glue the union butted right up against the elbow and used the left over straight section as the extension. Then you have to drill the body in two places one for the suction side of the pump and another up high to feed the skimmer with( the white plastic barbed fitting in the link. I would use a small drill and then a burr to open up the hole to the correct size.


uniseal source: I would buy two and replace the original

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fus ... 0/cid/2009

 

[fungia]

very nice mod!