Via Aqua Skimmer Club

[luke33]

Sounds good man, i would suggest you go all out and recirc it! Especially if you already have the pump and yes i'd suggest the catalina thats 1000gph. Get some mesh for 5bux from ebay and be ready to rock.

[danorth]

already orderded the mesh........................! (insert sinster laugh HERE!)

My wife is going to kill me........when I get into something, I let it consume me! I will have to figure out the pieces for the recirc and get it done. I basically want what you have, and having the pumps here already and the skimmer so cheap is a great start. Again, give me a couple of weeks and I'll be back! Can't wait to suck some s**t!

[luke33]

I'll be around

[clownfish2020]

Danorth, Is that the $50 sk388 from a southern california craigs list ad. I looked into that and it would cost $25 to ship to San Francisco. That is still cheap for a brand new one for $75.
I love trying to diy and modding skimmers but just like you my wife pefers I spend more time with the family and housetraing our 16 week puppy. And time goes by so fast when you are tinkering with equipment - I ended up ordering an octopus nw 200 from marine solutions for $205 including shipping but I will try the mesh mod

[danorth]

Yep, the very one! My brother lives down by the guy and passes by his area when he goes to work......what a hoot! He told me the same $25 shipping.

Yeah, I hear the family thing. I am shutting down my garage 125 just to lessen the burden that fish cause. Too much time, and now I have too many fish in my main 135. So now I have to get rid of some really nice fish to lower the total.

But, my wife wants the tank to look its best in the house since it is the dining room, so I am being granted some time to get it up to speed. What I need is a 240 to house all of these damn fish I've got.

[clownfish2020]

You probably could have got it for less as the first time he said no shipping only local pickup and about 1 week later he said he could ship - no interest locally?
Have you thought about the diy 5 gallon water bottle protein skimmer as you have plenty of extra pumps while you are waiting for the via aqua 388?

[danorth]

Never heard of the 5 gallon bottle thing, but doubt my wife would want that sitting in the dining room. I have 2 Catalina skimmers going now, but they don't pull damn near anything out, as in 1 cup every 2 weeks of light color water. The tube gets dirty, but that is about it. For the amount of fish I have in there, that is nothing.

[USC-fan]

Originally posted by luke33


What a strange contraption you got there.......well, heres what i would do. You can't cut down the tube or you'll have micro problems so I would take the pump out, grind down the impeller and add a layer of mesh or two if you can, then pull off the crappy air injector. I'd add a 1/4" hose adapter and a 1/4" air tube on the volute cover and you'll be pulling 2-3x's the air. Then you will see a much better performer. Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

wow that is one crazy skimmer design...

Anyone get it to work alright?

Wonder if it skims better than my aquaC remora...

[luke33]

Actually if you think about all the craze with the new hot octo with the internal pump.....this could have been the originator or it! lol

[danorth]

Found this......

http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/for/471345072.html

[luke33]

Yep, but there's no way it'll work for a 200g! lol, nice sales pitch though. Anyhow, here's my new recirc. Its pullin 5scfh more now, 35scfh, feeding it at 325gph. Here's two days worth of skimmate, pry around 4 cups.

[USC-fan]

did you get a good performance increase when switched it to recir?

[luke33]

LOL, just slightly, here's a comparison of skimmate.

Here's two days skimmate before recirc



Here's two days skimmate after recirc



The best thing about the recirc is the fact that i don't have to touch the skimmer at all. I didn't touch it for 6mths besides the collection cup. Yes, i'll never own a skimmer unless its a recirc again.

[danorth]

I need to figure some more of this recirculating thing out.

Are there 2 pumps now to make it work? What are the 2 pumps....and did you cut another hold into the body?

Anyone that can explain in idiot terms please?

[luke33]

There's two pump's. One that pullin in the air thats always connected to the body and one that feeds the skimmer with raw water. There's three holes on the body, two for the recirculating pump and one for the feeder pump. The feeder is generally fed towards the middle or the top reaction chamber. Take a look at a recirc octo or deltec.....and you'll get a clear picture. HTH, and you want your feeder to gererally be about 1.5-2x' your water volume. So my water volume is 165g and i have a 325gph feeder.

[luke33]

OK, here's the next day, another cup later. The cups are 23oz.

[luke33]

Its been a couple weeks. I was using a venturi on this guy that was pulling 40scfh unrestricted or 20 once hooked up. I redid a 4layer meshmod and added a flow restrictor and a little bit larger hose adapter. The skimmer was pulling over 50scfh unrestricted and once added to the skimmer its now pulling 35 scfh. Its got it so milked out it looks like pvc. here's a couple pics. No micro's are being released.





I think i'll be selling this guy soon. I'd like to get a taller skimmer. Pry a 8" diamter octonw 200, and turn it to a recirc. I hope this thread has helped out some people and i'm sure i'll have another octo thread out there soon enough with a step by step mod.

Luke

[jasonak]

Hey luke
Looks good let me know when you going to sell it
Im thinkg of trying to recirc the last skimmer I got from you.The ps 160 or whatever it was.Ive got a few skimmer floating around.

[luke33]

Jason, i wouldn't suggest recirc'in the ps160 as they are extruded acrylic and it most likely will crack unless you use heat in drilling the hole. Just not worth the potental trouble imo. Will do on the skimmer. Gotta get it tuned correctly first.

Luke

[FishAreFriends2]

aww dude thats disgusting, it must stink in the house. I think you should start selling those modded ones. I'd like to get one in the future thats pre-modded

[luke33]

Well, honestly it would be better to buy the octo 200 from marinesolutions for 179bux and then mod it. I think I could mod them all pulling 35-40scfh as a recirc for 250 + shipping. Thats 990-1130lph air. It should be able to handle a moderately stocked 200g tank.......for 250bux! Thats going to be hard to beat. These sk388's are great skimmers to mod, but just to much work and they are to short. One thing i don't quite understand is how everyone looks down on the odyssea pump's. The wp500 will do around 15-20scfh, the wp700 20-35 scfh and the wp1000 which will do up to around 55-60scfh! For around 20, 28 and 39 bux none the less. That is quite astounding imo. They have zero problems starting up as well. I've been running one wp1000 over two years and another over a year and i have never had one problem with them. The only drawback is they do use around 120watts unmodded or 90ish modded. I'd also be happy to build one of the via aqua's or octo's for someone. I just pimp'd a pump for someone last week. But all in all the via aqua's are very very nice skimmers modded. A very cheap skimmer for someone on a budget. And yes, my wife hates it when i clean out my collection cup, it stinks up the whole downstairs.

[danorth]

I'm still around too.......my brother that picked mine up a few weeks ago didn't come up for turkey day and is too lazy to ship so here I wait for Christmas.

Before you sell the one you have, could you take pics of the pieces for later use please?

[luke33]

Sure, when i clean it up and sell it i'll post pics of it. Then i'll do the whole rebuild thing with the octo.

[danorth]

Okay, I have cut out the tube from the bottom completely and replaced that portion with a piece of acrylic siliconed on the bottom. The stock inlet tube has been brought to the bottom and the 2 90* pvc's to the side. I also am using my 1000 gph pump with a 1/2" ID tube with a hose barb drilled into a 3/4" pvc slip with a chunk of the barb cut out towards the pump. I don't have room with this pump for mesh, and I don't have the space to do the recirc trick yet. For now it all fits into a 10 gallon tank and I am going to test it out tomorrow with 6 gallons of clean water, 2 dirty and the collection from my skimmer. I will take pics tomorrow.

[danorth]

So I added the skimmate from my current skimmer to the 10 gallon tank to get the party started.....the silencer is made from a 1.5" coupler and 2 plugs/end caps and charmin.