skimmer mod question

[treesprite]

I am just now learning that there is such a thing as gravity feeding a skimmer. I was looking at a diagram of someone's plumbing that makes me think a basic skimmer (one that works with a single pump with an air feed) can be modded into a gravity fed skimmer, just by making a hole in the upper body for plumbing. Is this possible?

[Origami]

I am just now learning that there is such a thing as gravity feeding a skimmer. I was looking at a diagram of someone's plumbing that makes me think a basic skimmer (one that works with a single pump with an air feed) can be modded into a gravity fed skimmer, just by making a hole in the upper body for plumbing. Is this possible?

Yes, it's possible. It's best to ensure that you have a reasonably constant head of water in the feed so that you're able to control the level in the skimmer. This is normally done by using a tee to re-route any extra water away from the skimmer and directly into the sump. The configuration was more common in days of using airstones or basswood blocks in skimmers, but can be readily implemented in recirculating skimmer bodies. For non-recirculating designs, though, new water is still ingested into the skimmer using the same pump that's pulling in the air. In that case, gravity feed makes little sense.

[treesprite]

I kind of feel like it might still make sense, because at least some crud is being caught right away. Is it not enough to make it worth it?

 

Can a non-circulating skimmer just have an air thing connected to mix air with the incoming gravity fed water, and then the pump just not used?

Edited October 27, 2017 by treesprite

[Origami]

I kind of feel like it might still make sense, because at least some crud is being caught right away. Is it not enough to make it worth it?

 

Can a non-circulating skimmer just have an air thing connected to mix air with the incoming gravity fed water, and then the pump just not used?

In a non-recirculating skimmer, it won't make sense unless you can open the output sufficiently such that the flow through the skimmer pump is not affected. The flow through that pump is what draws the air in. Less flow - less air - reduced skimmer efficiency.

 

Yes, Forrest. What you're describing there is an old airstone skimmer. That was what the hobby relied on 20+ years ago, before venturi skimmers, downdraft skimmers, Beckett skimmers, etc. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Paul Baldassano still runs one. The best ones, way back when, used a hollow block of basswood as the airstone. It's porosity, when driven by a high pressure air pump created lots of very fine bubbles that made skimmers effective and secured their role in the hobby. But, eventually the block would degrade and would have to be replaced. Replacement cycles were about 3 to 6 months as I recall.

 

Recently, I saw an airstone skimmer as part of a new Nano skimmer product being sold by Marine Depot. So, yes, that configuration works. But, remember, you want a ton of very fine bubbles. So that requires a good airstone and a decent air pump.

 

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[Origami]

Correction : Paul may be using forced air injection into a venturi port on his skimmer (which he built). It may have originally been an airstone, design, though. Something in the back of my mind tells me that, in recent years, he was repairing what he referred to as his venturi on the skimmer, but that he described it as being assisted by an air pump.

 

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