Update on new 415 gallon tank and pics of new skimmer and re

[npaden]

I just wanted give an update on the progress on my tank upgrade. The tank (a custom made 415 gallon from Mitch at Inter-American, dimensions 122"X28"X28", regular 3/4" glass) has been shipped and is in Salt Lake City, Utah as of yesterday per the tracking on Consolidated Freightways. Of course I'm leaving for vacation next week so the tank will sit in the freight warehouse until I get back and will bring it home on July 9th. Still taking volunteers who are into heavy lifting!

I have nearly everything else except the rock and the sand which I'm going to get uncured rock and cure it in the tank. I just got my custom made protein skimmer and calcium reactor from Andy at Myreef and have my sea swirls, ampmasters, etc. all sitting and waiting on the tank to arrive. I ended up buying a steel frame stand from Mitch so I don't have to worry about building my own and that was a sigh of relief. I also ended up buying a custom 135 gallon sump from Mitch as well.
Oh well, I took a couple of pics of the skimmer, reactor and waste collector and thought I would post them. I put a diet coke can in the pic to give you a size perspective, also the stand in the background is a 24" tall stand. They are actually taller than the stand, but the pic was taken at an angle so they don't look taller. The skimmer is 8" OD riser tube and collection cup and the reactor is 6" OD and 24" tall. The skimmer is just over 26" tall and was designed short and fat to fit in my stand but still give me more contact area than a 36" tall 6" OD riser skimmer would. It has dual beckett injectors and I plan on driving it with 2 Mag 12 pumps. I'm going to use the single chamber reactor I have now as a second chamber for the reactor that I bought from Andy.
Andy was a great guy to deal with and has excellent prices.
Here are the pics:

Hopefully I will get the tank up and running mid July and will keep everyone updated and will post pics of the tank when it comes in.
FWIW, Nathan

 

[Iron]

That skimmer even looks better than canreef

Hope MYREEF stays in business. Looks like good work.

 

[bigtank]

Holy smokes!

 

[srbayless]

Howdy,

What has Myreef used for injectors on the skimmer, I don't recognize what they are?

Does your tank have several braces on the bottom to support the 3/4" normal glass? That is one large peice of glass !

Good luck and keep us updated,

Scott.

 

[percula]

Andy (myreef) uses beckett injectors.

 

[percula]

Oyeah, the stuff looks cool, I only saw them in progress

! Later!

 

[Josh's Reef]

Your tank sounds awsome

.MYREEF looks like you do a great job building skimmers, but I think that skimmer is to small for the tank(if its a reef that is).Your OK for fish only.If you plan on reefing your reaction tower is about 2 feet short.e.g. the MTC HSA 2000. Just MO. GOOD LUCK AND KEEP US UPDATED

 

[myreef]

I agree Josh, the reaction tower could have been somewhat taller, but Nathan was working with height restrictions in his stand. The first riser is 8" OD tube as well as the collection cup and the second riser is 6" OD. I forgot what the cubic inches are of this skimmer, but I know that when we were calculating, it was more than a much taller one, with smaller diameter tube. With the 2 injectors, it will really force a lot of bubbles in the chamber and riser. Although, I am finishing a skimmer similar to the HSA 2000 today, that will stand 33" tall with 2 chambers for a 650 gallon system, I feel Nathan's skimmer will handle the job. If you believe that the PM Bullet 3 can handle 400 gallons being only 6" taller, but using smaller diameter tube, then this skimmer will do the job, especially with 2 injectors. Remember the HSA 2000 can handle systems up to 2000 gallons....

Thanks for the kind words Nathan....and Iron....I am here.

 

[npaden]

Josh,
Have you ever heard the term wider is better?

I just double checked my volume calculations to help me double check that the skimmer should work adequately.

The volume of the contact chamber of the skimmer with the 8" and 6" riser chambers calculates out at 2,336 cubic inches. I don't have the skimmer here at the office, but I'm sure the first riser is 6" and I believe the second riser is 10" and that's how I calculated the contact area.

I calculated the contact area of a Bullet 3 skimmer and even though it is 6" taller than my skimmer it uses 6" and 4.5" diameter riser tubes. I don't have the specs on the Bullet 3 but it looks like the first riser is around 6" and the second riser is around 16" or so. That calculates out to a contact area of only 1,696 cubic inches! So even though my skimmer is shorter than the Bullet 3 it has about 38% more contact area along with the fact that it has 2 injectors rather than just one.

I also double checked this skimmer against the HSA model skimmers. I was shocked to find out that the skimmer actually has more contact area than the 45" tall HSA 1000! I calculated this based on what appears to be about a 10" first riser and a 12" second riser. Based on those calculations the contact area would be 1,824 cubic inches. The HSA loses contact area because the injector actually passes through the riser tube taking up valuable contact area and making cleaning a much more difficult process. If I'm missing the mark on the height of the riser tubes and I add 2" to the first riser and 3" to the second riser that would give the HSA 1000 2,226 cubic inches of contact area (that is also assuming the injector passing through the riser tubes is 1" in diameter - it may be larger).

So if the HSA 1000 with 2,226 cubic inches of contact area at the maximum and one injector can be rated for a 1,000 gallon tank, hopefully my skimmer with 2,336 cubic inches of contact area and 2 injectors will be able to handle my puny little 415 gallon reef tank.

Oh well, I've been wanting to do those calculations for myself for a while and your question about whether this short little skimmer could handle my tank got me in the mood to do the calculations!

I also have a 58 gallon refugium as part of the 135 gallon sump that I will use for nutrient export of macroalgae as well. I'm trying to do this tank right and not trying to skimp on any area, I just wanted a skimmer than would fit under the stand and Andy was able to make me one that hopefully will be able to handle the tank.

FWIW, Nathan

 

[npaden]

Scott,
Yes Andy uses the beckett injectors for his skimmers. Really quality handmade stuff. Very solidly built. This stuff is not machined and every edge is not perfectly clean, but it appears very functional and at quite a savings over the mass produced versions. Don't get me wrong, you can see from the pics that they look good, but the biggest benefit to me was the ability to have Andy customize the short squat body on this skimmer for less $$ than a single injected bullet 3 would have run me.
End of advertisement!

I'm not sure if the stand will have any additional bracing or not. The 3/4" glass will sit on 1" of styrofoam which will sit on 3/4" plywood all permanently attached to the bottom of the tank. Mitch acted like he has built several tanks this size and that's what he recommended so that's what I got.
I will try to take pictures of the entire unloading process and lots of pics of the tank itself when it comes in.
I just hope I haven't set my expectations to high.
FWIW, Nathan

 

[Lunchbucket]

looks great.

i am envious

just hope i can afford a tank that big someday when i am done w/ my vast quest of college, master, and Ph.D. well i will be 80 by then but i can have a fulltime hobby then. and a house to build aroundt he tank!!

please keep us posted!!

later
Lunchbucket

 

[Speed]

When you get to your plumbing do yourself a favor and T an outlet with shutoff into a suction line and a pressure line. This way you can use a Python or hose to vacume up debri or flush out areas that are hard to get at. Mine are T'd to my mechanical filtration which I use to polish my water if needed. Just a thought of something that worked for me.

 

[npaden]

Josh,

First off, I speciffically requested this skimmer to be made this way, Andy normally makes the taller skinny skimmers as they are actually cheaper to build than the short fat skimmers because the price of the tube grows at an alarming rate when you get over 6".

Actually the skimmer is based on the bullet design not the HSA design. The HSA design wastes contact area in my opinion by running the downdraft through the skimmer contact chamber.

Also I don't understand what force could possibly be acting against the bubbles as they rise except for gravity. Even in the HSA design the downdraft tube is sealed and offering no resistance to the bubbles going up.

As far as the square box for a skimmer, I believe that would be a viable option as AquaC skimmers are already utilizing this to a great extent (I currently use one of the rectangular AquaC Remora Pros).

The problem arises that us want to watch the stupid bubbles and it would be too much of a pain and also more expensive to build clear acrylic skimmers that were square. The bulk of the downdraft and air injection systems don't use counter current features at all so it wouldn't make any difference to an HSA, Bullet, Etc. skimmer if the riser tube was a riser square in my opinion.

As far as skimmer ratings I would agree with you that the ratings are overblown for the most part. With this skimmer I actually am more worried about overskimming than underskimming as I will skim my entire system water volume approximately 4 times each hour. I plan on running the skimmer full time to start but hopefully I will be able to back off and run it for only 12 or 14 hours each day to avoid overskimming the tank.

Oh well. I've always felt that the contact of the air bubbles in the riser tube or square and the quality and size of the air bubbles was the important part of skimming a tank. As far as how tall the skimmer is I believe that skimmers like the ETSS 1800 would be an adequate skimmer for my tank but it is only 26" tall as well. They rate it for a 1,000 gallon tank just like the HSA 1000 at 45" is rated for a 1,000 gallon tank. http://www.superskimmer.com/etss_1800.htm

I feel that if you can fill a chamber with a large contact area with a solid mass of bubbles that will rise into a collection cup you have an excellent skimmer. There are very many ways to do this and one method is with a short but wide skimmer. Another method is a skinny but tall skimmer. Both will work equally effectively in my opinion.

[ June 28, 2001: Message edited by: npaden ]

 

[FMarini]

Nate;
if i may ask about your double beckett headed skimmer.
What size pump are you gonna be drive this unti w/?
I ask this becuz the drain on your skimmer looks like its either a 1.25 or a 1.5" drain. If i recall correctly precisionmarine has installed a double beckett skimmer at a LFS and uses an mak5 or mak7 to drive this unit, the outflow is a 2" drain. Now I have no clue as to how it was determined that a 2' drain is satisafactory, but its there. So i'm wondering if you can put that much water thru this unti, and still get the water level down to the level of the box/riser column interface.
If you want to see a photo of this double beckett skimmer its attached to the bottom of the bullet3 page at precisionmarine.com
Just curious
frank

 

[Josh's Reef]

npaden,
Your starting to get a little like JOHN@CRY. Dont take offense to anything I say I thought we would each voice our opinions hence a conversation.
The other thing is that I think your thinking is slightly flawed.The smaller HSA designs like the 250 24"and 500 32"have separate downdraft towers as does your skimmer and the bubbles within those tubes are fighting the flow of water. Trying to rise that is. Why else would they have these tubes in a downdraft style, and not horizontally injected.

Last point before your rebutle:
The sqare box design is just bad!!!!!! Why do you think AE Tech is changing there skimmers to a tube within a tube design.(I think they are called the evolution series).They have found that the corners in the box desings are dead flow zones, as you would have dead spots in your tank. They also hinder the water flow from circulating as quickly as it should. Which would give you more cotact time. Instead of having the water just forced to the top.

 

[Josh's Reef]

What do you think MYREEF?

 

[RUaBatfish2]

I tend to agree with FMarini. I don't think that gate will handle the double beckett. It will probably need a 2" gate. Even with that gate wide open, the water level may be too high and produce an overflowing wet foam.

 

[myreef]

Josh, I am not going to get into a great debate like the CanReef thread. We chose this design for several reasons, we talked for about 4 or 5 days to come up with the sizing. I stand behind it. PM uses a 'square' box as does MTC. AE Tech, is trying to be different. Someone always is trying to be different. It doesn't make it better or worse.

RU and FMarini, I feel the 1 1/2" gate valve will handle the flow. If not, I told Nathan I would replace it with a 2" free. MTC, on their dual injected dual chambered skimmer uses a 1 1/2" gate valve also. Most people rave over this skimmer.

[ June 28, 2001: Message edited by: myreef ]

 

[npaden]

Josh,
To me this is not an arguement about Andy's skimmer's. Andy makes good quality skimmers and there is not any question about that. To me this is an arguement about my skimmer design and it's inadequacy in your opinion!

I personally haven't looked into the smaller HSA skimmers, just the larger ones. I don't know how they work, just how the larger HSA 1000 and 2000 work. I simply can't believe you are so unwilling to accept the obvious fact that the contact area of a skimmer is one of the most important aspects to it's skimming ability. I realize contact time is also important and I think bubble size and the resultant surface area created is very important as well.

If you would prefer I could start a new thread on skimmer theory and we could get more input into this as you obviously have your mind set on this one.

I really don't even understand the point you are trying to make here except for some unknown reason you are positive that my skimmer is too short? Math is a very powerful tool and will give you the results that you are trying to refute. There is more than one way to skim a cat you know!

(pun intended)

What about the ETSS 1800? Have you spoken with them to tell them that their skimmer is to short?

Again, this is my skimmer design - not Andy's. He helped me and told me that he felt it would okay for my size tank. I do not have any desire to get into an arguement over Andy's skimmers at all. This is not about his skimmers.

I just would like to hear why a skimmer with a smaller contact area and 1 injector would outperform one with a larger contact area and 2 identical injectors.

P.S. - Andy makes HSA style skimmers as well for people who enjoy cleaning them!

FWIW, Nathan

 

[sawcjack00]

I just ordered my new skimmer from Andy (Myreef) today, and if you all don't mind I'd like to give you my unbiased review of the product even though it hasn't actually even been built yet and I have no actual knowledge of how it will work...oh wait that would be stupid

but seriously folks, I can't wait to get it set up and running. look for my comments coming to a UBB near you!