Octopus Skimmer Mods

[davidabrown66]

Originally posted by Bunkerbean
Your a stud!

Naw, just bored today. All I'm doing at work today is posting and reading from the forums

[skwirl]

Originally posted by davidabrown66
Not that simple, and very good info you'll miss by not looking at the start of this post and reading up until now. There are at least 3 different ways people have had success with just the airway being opened up not to mention using a JG fitting or retaining the original nipple and reaming. If you just want to drill the venturi and retain the nipple I would use a 1/8" bit to start with, and drill both sides of the 90 in the airway without going into the waterway. This is the simplest way, but if you plan on doing more than that I would suggest reading the previous postings in this thread. I still scroll through it to get information from time to time.

Some othe the mods are easy to start with to gain some confidence, and will give you an instant performance gain. I would start by also buying a air flow meter here:

http://www.dwyer-inst.com/htdocs/flow/SeriesRMPrice.cfm

Buy the RMA-7, this will give you the necessary readings as you start to do the mods. Listening for airflow differences isn't enough, you need this.

Also, I would suggest buying a kill-o-watt meter b/c doing some of the mods incorrectly can cause a big jump in energy consumption, and knowing this will allow you to make some changes to you implementation, but this isn't as important as the air meter.

I and I'm sure others will help you along the way with any questions you have.

-David

i have the regular water pump, not the nw. i was thinking of diy converting it.

[JCTewks]

I'v been away from this thread for awhile...but, i still have to believe that well more than 20 SCFH is to be expected out of an OTP2000 or OTP3000 pump...even the new ones. I have the OTP1000 on e recirc DNW110 and i can get it to pull 20SCFH at 30 watts. if you guys are only getting 20SCFH out of a 3000, i would take a look at what you are doing and see how it could be bettered. If you look back about 20 pages you'll find a pic of my skimmer that I had to add about 18" of neck to to handle all of thair that little 1000 is putting out. and FWIW I have had the mesh on for about 6 months now without an issue of falling apart. it did get clogged when i was battling hair algea and a whole bunch of it went over the overflow into the pump. but not an ounce of problem in everyday use. Keep plugging away, try and make as much room in the volute as you can, put the biggest mesh you can fit without rubbing, and go with at least 4 layers of mesh.

Also, everyone please stop cutting all of your needles off of those impellers. with not much work at all you can break the glue that holds them on and they will pop right off. i used the spare NW to make more meshwheels to test different dimeters an thicknesses of mesh until I got what worked best.

I can repost the pic of my DNW110 doing 20SCFh if anone would like.

Good luck everyone!!

[-MillerTime-]

i just did the mesh mod on my NW-150 and i had been having problems getting it to work. it would make a really loud noise and only work when i would blow into the air hose. i made sure the mesh was snipped all around the edges but still same problem. i didnt remove the 2nd needle wheel on it and am thinking i might have to. then i came home today and it wasnt working so i took it apart to find the needle wheel had snapped off from the magnetic part, i am trying to superglue it right now but will probably have to order another one. any suggestions on how to get this thing working. thanks!

[JCTewks]

Originally posted by oohmiller
i just did the mesh mod on my NW-150 and i had been having problems getting it to work. it would make a really loud noise and only work when i would blow into the air hose. i made sure the mesh was snipped all around the edges but still same problem. i didnt remove the 2nd needle wheel on it and am thinking i might have to. then i came home today and it wasnt working so i took it apart to find the needle wheel had snapped off from the magnetic part, i am trying to superglue it right now but will probably have to order another one. any suggestions on how to get this thing working. thanks!

I took a piece of needlepointers mesh(sold in the craft section of walmart) and superglued that onto an impeller. used that to put 4 layers of mesh with a piece of Gutter guard on top and sewed it all together with fishing line. i pulled it all fairly tight so that it would not rub the volute cover. that is the impeller that gave me 20 SCFH on the DNW110. I do have to blow into my airline to get it tp start...have had to since the first mod...don't know why, but i'll live with it for a skimmer that kicks butt. Hope that Helps.

[jbeltmann]

On my 150 I have 2 rows of needlewheels. I didn't have any luck until I removed the top layer of the nw on the impeller and then added 3 layers of mesh with the smallest zip ties I could find. That did the trick for me.

[outy]

jbelt same here used 4 zipties and il pulling 35 scfh out of one of my pumps 30 scfh out of the other on a oct 3000

[skwirl]

would somebody be willing to make me 2 venturis for 2 octo 3000's? or tell me exactly what i need to do it myself? i have these 2 brand new pumps sitting here doing nothing.

[-MillerTime-]

ok i was able to superglue the impeller back together. i put it back in unmodded and it works fine, but broke again when i added two layers of mesh with 4 zip ties on one set of needle wheels after removing the first one. then i tryed putting two layers of mesh inbetween both of the impellers and it broke again. so now its running without any mesh. i am still ordering a new one for better durability but i wouldnt think it would break that easily with the mesh if it was done right. what am i doing wrong, do i need to bore out the ventura or somethin?
help!

[JCTewks]

are you making sure that the impeller is not rubbing before you put it back on the skimmer? Also, using fishing line instead of zipties would reduce the weight. my suspicion is that iti is rubbing though.

[-MillerTime-]

well i make sure it is cut no farther than the needles and im pretty sure its not sticking up farther than the top of the impeller so i dont think it is rubbing. i will try the fishline and see if that works.

[JCTewks]

alot of my first attempts were rubbing on the top...well, the zip ties were rubbing , not the mesh. I would definitely just use one NW. the extra weight of both needlewheels can jump the watts up pretty high when you put the mesh on. Try one NW and 3 layers of mesh sewed on with fishing line. I put mine on fairly tight and it works really well.

[outy]

would somebody be willing to make me 2 venturis for 2 octo 3000's? or tell me exactly what i need to do it myself? i have these 2 brand new pumps sitting here doing nothing.

skwirl do what i and roland did

use a jg fitting the same size as normal ro/di tubing. drill the venturi airhole larger down to the 90 degree bend but not all the way through. i ground down the threads on the jg fitting so i would not have to drill a large hole and epoxied the jg fitting in. then drill the airhole to the id of the ro/di tubing.

look at roland j and what he did for better directions in this very post

[carlos_fb]

Yesterday I made this platform for my NW-150 since it was sitting too deep in my sump. Now it is only 8.5" under water. Hopefully this will make my gate valve mod perform better.

[skwirl]

i did it, and i love it.

[hng]

has anyone used a simple ball valve instead of a gate valve for the output mod? Can't seem to find any PVC gate valves locally.

[davidabrown66]

Originally posted by skwirl
i did it, and i love it.

Does this mean you did the same thing as Outy and Roland did and had a better result? Do you have an air meter so we can drewl over your SCFH/LPH?

[davidabrown66]

Originally posted by outy
would somebody be willing to make me 2 venturis for 2 octo 3000's? or tell me exactly what i need to do it myself? i have these 2 brand new pumps sitting here doing nothing.

skwirl do what i and roland did

use a jg fitting the same size as normal ro/di tubing. drill the venturi airhole larger down to the 90 degree bend but not all the way through. i ground down the threads on the jg fitting so i would not have to drill a large hole and epoxied the jg fitting in. then drill the airhole to the id of the ro/di tubing.

look at roland j and what he did for better directions in this very post

Did you get a performance gain from doing this? I know that seems like a stupid ?, but it seams like reaming out the stock nipple to the ID of ro/di tubing (1/8") and then drilling the other half of the airway to the same 1/8" would have the same effect without having to drill out the nipple and replace with JG fitting...? I've done it both ways, and my results were still 20 SCFH either way.

I continue to play with the stock venturi's and OTP-3000 just to torture myself. I keep thinking maybe I just didn't do it right...even after testing and modding 3 different stock venturi's I wonder If I didn't do the right combination of venturi mods.

I keep hoping for that AH HA! moment, but no...Oh well.

The good news is I should have good #'s to report on Thurs or Fri from the Gen-x 4100 with Euroreef SP4 mod.

[daytonreefRob]

Originally posted by hng
has anyone used a simple ball valve instead of a gate valve for the output mod? Can't seem to find any PVC gate valves locally.

A ball valve would not be a good choice for regulating the amount of flow. Ball valves are great for turning water completely on or off, but if you want to be able to make minor adjustments, a gate valve is the way to go.

Gate valves definitely cost more than ball valves, many have said they have found gate valve at Ace Hardware stores.

Rob

[hng]

thanks for the suggestion Rob, I'll check out the local Ace tomorrow.

[outy]

Did you get a performance gain from doing this?

not sure about the size but theres no way the stock air nipple could stay intact with the size i opened it up too

[davidabrown66]

Last night I started using a different thickness of enkamat. It just so happened that I ran out and reordered from another person on ebay. Well, the stuff that arrived was twice as thick at least as the original sheet I bought. I cut 3 layers to the diameter of the larger nw which is much thicker than I was using before, and voila! FINALLY! I now have 29 SCFH!!! The downside is that there's way more water flowing now, and the foam is just about overflowing, so I had to open up the gate valve completely, and turn down my feed. The other downside is that I'm sure there's more turbulance, and the wattage is now 90 watts.

Anyway, I'm still going with the Gen-x 4100 with SP4, but I finally got my ah ha moment before cutting over to a different pump, nw, etc. That happens Wednesday PM or Thursday.

[ppurcell]

There is a rather simple mod you can install that should help with turbulance. Check out the post from Ostrow about 1/2 of the way down in the ASM Skimmer thread. I installed it on my G4+ and it definately helps. I do have some microbubbles now but they don't make it into my display because of how my sump/refugium is setup so it may or may not work for you.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...&pagenumber=18

[davidabrown66]

Originally posted by ppurcell
There is a rather simple mod you can install that should help with turbulance. Check out the post from Ostrow about 1/2 of the way down in the ASM Skimmer thread. I installed it on my G4+ and it definately helps. I do have some microbubbles now but they don't make it into my display because of how my sump/refugium is setup so it may or may not work for you.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...&pagenumber=18

Interesting Mod, and looking at his description of stable foam is just the opposite of what I have which is large bubbles at the top popping like crazy, but I think I'm done with this pump, and awaiting the Gen-x 4100 which might still give me the same problem. In that case, I may go this route, but still waiting to see what skimmer output looks like on this pump and the new SP4 mod for the Gen-x.

Thanks for the link though.

[ppurcell]

no problem.

I don't have a before and after pic, but here is what I am currently getting when using the diffuser. Note the the bubbles are very small and very evenly flowing out over the cone. There was much more turbulance before I installed the diffuser. This is my ASM G4+ with a modded the OTP-3000 pump which draws 30 scfh / 15 lpm



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