DIY big beckett - pic heavy

[naterealbig]

Hey everyone. I have been doing a lot (several months) of research on skimmers and new skimmer technology. I sided a couple of months ago with the beckett users, and began looking around at prices for new skimmers. I, as mostly everyone was astounded by the prices for these relatively simple pieces of equipment and like so many others out there decided to just build my own. I have a 180 gallon tank which isn't set up yet, and I am going to diy everything except the chiller. I figured I would start with the skimmer. I contemplated several different skimmer designs, and built 3D models of most of them on a program called "Sketchup" by google (r). After consulting waylander (who has been a HUGE help in the planning and design of my skimmer) and several other diy'ers I decided on a "my reef creations" style skimmer. The skimmer I am building will incorporate ideas from many other skimmers however. I will say thanks in advance to Waylander for all his valuable input and Zephrant for his last 2 very helpful skimmer build threads. Here goes.

noteworthy: I have never worked with acrylic in my life. I have read several threads on diy acrylic projects, and it looked very hard. I just hope I can make it semi-professional looking. Any advice/comments would be greatly appreciated.

I purchased all of my acrylic from a local plastics dealer here in Jacksonville called "Farco Plastics". All of the other supplies I purchased could be found at LOWE'S. The 6" OD extruded acrylic tube was $35 for a 6' piece. I needed 2 lengths for this project. I also bought a 6' length of 3.5" OD acrylic tubing for $25. 1/2" black acrylic sheet (48"x96") was $240 although one sheet can yield several projects. I estimate I used about 1/2 the sheet for this skimmer. I could have done the box with 1/4" acrylic sheet vice the 1/2", but due to the height of the skimmer and the fact that the 2 risers would be bolted to the box, I went ahead with the 1/2".

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0190.jpg

I used a table saw to cut the sides of the box, and then used a router table to put a nice edge on the acrylic. I did this by cutting the side an 1/8" too large, and then routing 1/16" off of each side. I used a plunge router (Black and Decker RP200) and a Jasper Cirlce jig with a 1/4" bit to cut the holes, circles, and flanges. I didn't know where to start, so I started putting the box together.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0193.jpg

Here's a pic of the 6" tubing.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0195.jpg

Here is a propane torch that I will use to polish the acrylic, before I glue. I have read that you can't flame polish near the seams because it will "cook" the glue.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0199.jpg

I knew that I wouldn't be able to put the top or the bottom of the box on until later so I did the next thing that came to mind. I began to drill and tap the holes for the riser flanges and for the collection cup lid. All of my holes I will drill for 1/4" 20 thread (nylon) bolts. I think the tap, drill, and tap "holder" were about $15 all together. I also found out that a special plastic drill bit isn't need for drilling the holes in the 1/2" acrylic sheet, if you have a drill press.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0200.jpg

All of this took about 7 hours for me to do today. Again, I'm brand new to all of this so I worked very slow. If you have any questions about what I have done so far, feel free to ask.

[naterealbig]

Oh by the way, I used weldon 3 to glue the sides of the box together. I also bought some weldon 16, as I will be gluing some pvc to the acrylic (wanted to save some money by not using expensive bulkhead fittings). The bolts you see in the above picture are 1 1/2"x1/4" 20 thread nylon. I will need 24 bolts total, along with 24 wingnuts. I purchased the wingnuts and bolts for about $20 total. Kind of expensive I thought, but maybe they can be found cheaper than at Lowe's. Oh, I don't think I said anything about this, but I decided to go with bolt on risers in order to aid cleaning the skimmer. At 63" completed height, there is no way I would be able to clean the thing if I couldn't take it apart.

[H20ENG]

You dont want to flame polish any edge you will glue. The glue will cause it to craze a lot (micro cracks) You can actually hear it cracking. Less so with cast material, but keep it away from your extruded tube.
Also, not sure if your bolt holes go through to the box, but you can glue in little blocks to keep them water tight.
Great first effort!
Looks like a nice shop, BTW!

[naterealbig]

Funny your the first to reply, H20ENG, as I have admired your acrylic and PVC work many a time! I actually think waylander recommend I take a look at your designs. Beautiful I must say.

You dont want to flame polish any edge you will glue.

Yes, I read that you don't want to get the heat near the glue. Will definately keep it away.

Also, not sure if your bolt holes go through to the box, but you can glue in little blocks to keep them water tight.

The bolt holes do go through the box. I will attach the riser flanges this way. I'm not sure what you mean by gluing in little blocks however. Could you explain?

Looks like a nice shop, BTW!

Ha! I wish that was my shop. I had saved enough money to buy most of the tools I would need, but didn't have enough for the table saw. I work on a Sub Base though and brought it to one of the shops to have the tubes cut. The shop (my own) I'm working in today is much more modest I have to say.

[naterealbig]

Aliright, here are some updates from this morning. Now that my tube is cut I started putting the risers together. It is much easier than working with the black box, becuase I can actually see the weldon 4 wicking (sp?). I am also building the beckett housings and plumbing now as well.

For the beckett housing I used a 1" pvc expansion coupling. I saw a thread on how to build one of these, and I thought it was great. Cheap and easy is what I was thinking here. Basically, you take the coupling, drill and thread a hole. screw in a valve to control intake and voila! Insta-beckett housing.


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0210.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0211.jpg

I have also run into my first significant problem. I tried to fit my flanges together with the bolts installed, and I couldn't get anything to line up. I made sure to use the exact same template, but this is what I think the problem is. When I tapped the holes, I think that I may have been holding the tap cocked, such that when I installed the bolts, they were not perpendicular to the surface. I think I will be able to correct this simply by drilling larger holes into the unthreaded flanges ( the top of the skimmer box, and the cover for the collection cup) I will start with a 3/8" and see where that leaves me.

[naterealbig]

I just thought of this - I don't think I mentioned the dimensions of the skimmer its self. The box that the 2 risers will sit on is 20"long, 15" wide, and 13" tall. The risers are 36" tall, the nekck is 10" (including the portion inside of the collection cup), and the collection cup is 8" tall. You might think that 8" might be a bit large for a collection cup, but I noticed something about most of the skimmers I see. The foam almost always hits the top of the collection cup before it can fall down into it. It seems like the foam movement is being hindered by the to being so close, so I wanted to give ample room for the foam to rise out of the neck before it fell into the cup.

My last post I was building the risers and injector plumbing, and was drilling larger holes into the riser and cup flanges. It worked out well, everything is lined up now.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0217.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0214.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0219.jpg

I know people have warned not to drill into the the acrylic tubing, but I couldn't figure out any other way to install a drain line into the collection cup. I thought about going in from the bottom, but the threaded side of all the fittings would not have protruded through the 1/2 acrylic. That would have been ok, but I wanted a little bit of skimmate buildup in the collection cup so I could adjust for wetter/drier foam. I used a 90 degree 3/8" fitting with a 1/4" NPT threaded end. I drilled a hole in the side of the collection cup (2" from the bottom) and used a 1/4" NPT tap to thread the hole. Worked fine.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0220.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0221.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0222.jpg

[naterealbig]

While I was drilling and tapping, I decided to go ahead and put the hole in the box for the drain line. That 1/2" acrylic was a beast to try to tap.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0223.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0224.jpg

Here is a pic of the completed beckett housing, minus the beckett. I will install one unmodded beckett into one housing, and a modded beckett (modded beckett idea compliments of waylander - see his modded beckett thread here (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=958085)
- awesome thread by the way) to see how they compare on this particular skimmer.

Pic of the collection cup and neck, which will be attached to the skimmer body.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0228.jpg

Here's a pic of the completed injectors and plumbing.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0229.jpg

I'm done assembling the 2 skimmer risers and collection cups. If I do this again, I would have made the ring that attach the neck and cup to the body, actually slip inside of the 1st riser. This would have allowed much more surface area to glue, as the 1/8" thick tubing leaves little gluing area its self. I ended up adding a little weldon 16 just to keep it safe.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0230.jpg

This is all I've got done for now. Next I will begin assembling the tubes that go between the becketts and the skimmer body. More to come.

[Hopeful Reefer]

I certainly would never need a skimmer that big (on my 10g nano or 75g that I'm working with anyway ;) )...but I like what you are doing so I'll tag along on this one for a while... :)

You sure you don't own a shop or haven't worked with acryllic before? This all looks very good...

[naterealbig]

You sure you don't own a shop or haven't worked with acryllic before? This all looks very good...

H20ENG said I had a nice shop too....The first few pictures I posted were in a shop where I work. I brought the supplies there, becuase I didn't have a table saw, and needed to make some cuts. You can see from my other pic that I'm working out of my (messy) garage.

I have never worked with acrylic before, but keep in mind, I have been planning this thing for about 2 months and have done nothing but read about diy skimmers and acrylic work. I supposed the research paid off.

[naterealbig]

Alright. I'm almost ready to put the top and bottom on the box. I assembled a u-tube type inlet system for the skimmer. Credit for this idea go to zephrant in his monster beckett thread. I used pvc however, as one; it was cheaper and easier, and two; I read on one of his posts that the larger diameter acrylic tubing was causing some burping problems. Knocked out 2 birds with one stone on this one.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0232.jpg

Here I have attached (using weldon 16) the u-tubes to the top of the box. I needed to place these before I put the lid on the box for obvious reasons. Before I glued the u tubes in however, I put all of the bolt in.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0233.jpg

While I was waiting for that to dry, I went ahead and finished up the return plumbing (for the inside of the box anyway). I used a 2" 90 degree fitting for this, so I could minimize microbubbles in the return. The 90 degree bend will sit approx. 1/2" from the bottom of the box. I will use a 2" pvc gate valve to control water level in the skimmer.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0235.jpg

After the glue had set for the u tubes, I went ahead and bolted the towers to the skimmer top, dry fit the injection plumbing, and dry fit the support bracket just to see how everything fit together. This is what it looks like so far.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0238.jpg

As you can see in the pic, the injection plumbing is a little bit crooked. I will try to fix this with my propane torch. You know, I really didn't realize how big this skimmer was going to be. I had made several drawings, but nothing would have prepared me for how big it is in real life. I'm 6'4" and the thing stands mid chest next to me, and I don't even have the box on it yet. I may have to twist my arm here and build another, smaller version. Oh no! Not another build! :)

I'm going go to put the return valve on the box and then glue on the top and bottom of the box. Should be done here pretty soon.

[Hopeful Reefer]

If you do have to build another, you can always find someone with a tank 2 or 3 times as big as yours and sell it to them for an arm and a leg!! :lmao: Good way to finance the next one for yourself... :D

Looks good so far by the way...

[naterealbig]

Ok, here's a pic of the skimmer all done. What a monstrosity! I put the 2" gate valve on. I had to put 2 thread to slip fittings on it, but hey, I got it a a local hardware store for $15. I imagine that this skimmer could easily skim 500 gal +. Now I just need to find a tank that someone will let me use it on! :) What do ya think?

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMG_0247.jpg

And thanks for lookin,

Nate

[fewells]

I gotta 300 reef if you wanna drive to missouri and try it out. Very very nice. I will probably steal your idea and build one myself.

[Waylander]

:beer:
Wow. If I had your skimmer, I would throw mine away. I can't wait til you fire it up. What are you going to use to drive it?

[naterealbig]

I gotta 300 reef if you wanna drive to missouri and try it out. Very very nice. I will probably steal your idea and build one myself.

Please do - The build definately wasn't easy, but it WAS a lot easier than I expected. The only thing that saved me was lots and lots and lots of planning. If you need any help, please let me know, and good luck!

Wow. If I had your skimmer, I would throw mine away. I can't wait til you fire it up. What are you going to use to drive it?

What a compliment! I'm not sure what I will need to run it. Most threads I read say that you need about 1000 gph to run 1 beckett. I suppose you could double it for two. However, this is with the unmodded becketts. I will take a look at your thread again, and try to come up with a reasonable flow. What would you suggest for 2 modded becketts?

[Hopeful Reefer]

May need something like a Mag36 or something with about that amount of flow!! WOW!! :eek2:

[Waylander]

I don't know what it will take. The mod reduces pump need but I have't tried driving 2 off of one pump. If I had some local people that would loan a pumps for trials, I'd try a something like a PCX-55 and move up to a PCX-70 if I needed more. Maybe one of the Reeflo pumps? Maybe someone driving a twin will chime in...

[naterealbig]

I'm going to post a thread in the NFMAS club forum. Perhaps there is someone with a pump or two lying around. If I get lucky, maybe one of the LFS's will let me run it on one of their systems. I'll keep you posted. Waylander - would you bother running a skimmer this large on a 180 gal tank - est. 250 system gallons total?

[Waylander]

Yes. As an avid DIYer, all my skimmers are for the NEXT tank (all of which will be considerably bigger...as soon as I can figure out how to pay for them). :) I really don't think you can overskim (JMHO, of course).

[naterealbig]

Very true. I supposed thats why I put a gate valve between the 2 becketts. Just in case I need only one, I can run just one.

[LittleBlueGT]

I run my dual beckett with a Blueline HD 100.

As big as you would want to go IMO, but it sure does push through the water!

[H20ENG]

"Funny your the first to reply, H20ENG, as I have admired your acrylic and PVC work many a time!"

Aww, shucks :rollface: By the looks of it, you will do just fine yourself!

A few comments if I may:

"The bolt holes do go through the box. I will attach the riser flanges this way. I'm not sure what you mean by gluing in little blocks however. Could you explain? "

Sure. The bolt holes will dribble water when you fire it up. If its in the sump, no biggie. I will usually double up the thickness of the piece- drill and tap one, then glue a second piece on to cover the holes underneath. You can cut the plastic bolts with one of those razor type snips.

Your inlet setup will prefer the skimmer on the right of the gate valve. I learned this the hard way when I built this years ago. Its the same concept, only with all pvc. 2 risers and sets of injectors with one base. Oh, and a 3" gate valve:thumbsup:

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/14095pvc_skimmer_3.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/14095pvc_skimmer_2.jpg

If you look down low, the inlet plumbing is similar to yours. I did have 2 valves, but it never would balance right until I equally divided the flow to each. The flow will always prefer the end of the run rather than a side outlet (In this situation). You may want to re do that part of it, even though it looks so much cleaner the way you have it :(

"but I wanted a little bit of skimmate buildup in the collection cup so I could adjust for wetter/drier foam"

Actually, you would do this with your gate valve (or Hartford Loop) leaving the skimmer.
No biggie though, this just gives you extra capacity for the stinky stuff:)

Tapping acrylic is fun, aint it? I usually will let the drill wallow out the hole just a tiny bit, or use the very next size up bit. I also will tap a few threads and retract it to clean it out. For the 1/4-20s I just use my cordless drill now that I have the feel for it.

One last thing, You have huge cajones for leaving those pretty acrylic towers standing there waiting for the wind to come up and take care of them for you! :lol: My luck, they would be splinters before I got a shot off.

Damn fine job.
Chris

[naterealbig]

I will usually double up the thickness of the piece- drill and tap one, then glue a second piece on to cover the holes underneath.

I understand what your saying now - although its too late. There is no way I could get my ogar hand inside of the box now. I wonder if I could dab a little weldon 16 around the threads, and then work the bolts in and out a bit. Would some weldon 4 work with the nylon? When I leak tested the skimmer, I didn't see any water leaking out of the flanges. Maybe after a while though.
You may want to re do that part of it, even though it looks so much cleaner the way you have it
I thought about the piping layout favoring one injector over the other, but didn't think it would be a problem with the gate valve installed between the two. I see what you mean though. Even with the gate valve which would allow me relatively precise tuning of flow, you think that I would have a large enough difference in flow to the seperate risers to make a difference? Hmmm. I suppose I could put an inlet to a 'T' and then to both injectors. I'm not sure if that would work either though. Perhaps I should put a seperate independant inlet to each beckett and then run them off of seperate pumps. That would probably be the easiest. What would you recommend?
Actually, you would do this with your gate valve (or Hartford Loop) leaving the skimmer.
I realize I would adjust for the wetter/dryer skimmate with the return line valve. I thought if I didn't allow atleast a little skimmate buildup it might be hard to see the darkness of the waste.
Tapping acrylic is fun, aint it?
Yeah-it was great ;). I really was afraid of cracking the tubing, but it was a lot sturdier than I expected. I don't know how you use a hand drill to drill that stuff - I couldn't get a 90deg hole if my life depended on it. I'm so clumsy.
One last thing, You have huge cajones for leaving those pretty acrylic towers standing there waiting for the wind to come up and take care of them for you! = nice way of saying I'm an idiot. ;) Very true, and with my luck, I don't know how they didn't fall over. I need to be more careful. I really would have been ticked if they had broken.

Thank you very much for your input and comments, and I welcome them if you have more.

Nate

[H20ENG]

You could try some teflon tape on the bolts or a silicone grease. O rings are not really an option, they will just twist out from under the heads. WO wont stick to the bolts, but I'd use teflon before trying to glue up the threads to decrease their size.

Try the inlet plumbing as-is first. No sense cutting into it before testing it. I was using the ball valves and never could get it to feed right. With the gate valve, it'll be more precise and you may be fine.

"I thought if I didn't allow atleast a little skimmate buildup it might be hard to see the darkness of the waste. "

Ohh Ok, Gotcha.

Did you drill your Becketts like Waylander? I'll be trying this very soon:)

[PelagicMagic]

nice job

[Abengochea]

really nice work!

[naterealbig]

You could try some teflon tape on the bolts or a silicone grease. O rings are not really an option, they will just twist out from under the heads. WO wont stick to the bolts, but I'd use teflon before trying to glue up the threads to decrease their size.

I'll would try the teflon tape, although I'm not sure how it would work as I can't fit my hands inside the box. I'll think about it a while.....if I come up with some genious solution I'll let you know. I suppose the real genious would have planned this right from the get-go (not gecko) :)

Try the inlet plumbing as-is first. No sense cutting into it before testing it. I was using the ball valves and never could get it to feed right. With the gate valve, it'll be more precise and you may be fine.

I hope your right here. I can change if I need to and I'll keep things like this updated on this thread.

Did you drill your Becketts like Waylander? I'll be trying this very soon

I have four modded and 4 stock becketts. I will probably run one modded and one unmodded for a while to see what the results are. I will post my results on waylanders thred. Thanks a lot for your help. - Nate

nice job
really nice work!

Thanks! There is no way I could have done this without diy'ers like you.

Nate

[H20ENG]

OK, now I see how you did your bottom flange bolts. I usually just tap the plate and use Thumbscrews. At least your threads are somewhat sealed by the screw heads underneath.
Just keep an eye on them.

[robwsup]

Nate,
This turned out great! I'm really impressed. Let me know if you need a tank to test it on.

[naterealbig]

Thanks - PM sent rob.

[BeanAnimal]

I will never use thmbscrews again... hard on the thumbs. Wing nuts or cam locks for me.

[naterealbig]

I'm not sure what you mean by thumb screws. I used wing nuts for both the bottom flange and the lid of the collection cup.

[naterealbig]

Never mind beananimal, just googled it.

[BeanAnimal]

They are very hard on the fingers :) Esp the nylon ones.

They nylon stretches a bit and is hard to twist (raw thumbs) teflon tape makes it much worse. SS thumbscrews work much better.

I am sorry, I did not read the whole thread... but from skimming it appears that you are having (or concerned about) water leaking? I am going back to read now.

[BeanAnimal]

I see your problem...

You COULD use small rubber washers between the box and screw head (like a bulkhead gasket) will work there... or silicone all of the screws in place. That will keep water from inside the box from traveling up the threads. Then the gasket between the flange and box will keep that water from reaching the threads as well.

[naterealbig]

You COULD use small rubber washers between the box and screw head (like a bulkhead gasket) will work there

Very true, however, the way the input lines go into the box there is no way I can get my hand in there now. H20ENG and I ran through a few possible solutions, and what I ended up doing was putting a rubber o ring around the bolt, betweent the flange and the wing nut. Despite this, on a few of the bolts water was leaking up between the threads of the bolt and the top of the wing nut. I stoped the leaking there by using some teflon tape around the bolt. A pain in the but now that I realize I should have planned that part better. I know for next time. The next skimmer I build I will probably do this: I will still drill holes and tap threads in the top of the box. However, I will glue a small peice of acrylic on the underside of the tapped holes. I will cut the head off of the bolt and crew it in from the top side of the box. This will prevent the water from being able to come up from the screw threads, and still allow the risers to be taken off for cleaning.

[naterealbig]

Or like you said, I could place a gasket between the bolt head and the underside of the box and that would probably prevent leaking as well. I think a rubber o ring would do the trick rather nicely. Other than this, I have had no other problems with the skimmer during the leak test. I have not run it yet however. I should be able to get it fired up around the end of this week. I'll post a couple pics, and then do a follow up probably a month later.

[BeanAnimal]

You can also get a bottoming tap (blind tap) that will allow you to thread blind holes instead od drilling all the way through.

You can also simply drill blind holes and use epoxy to secure the studs in place.

Another note: When using the drill press to drill the flange holes, clamp a piece of wood to the table and use a center pin in the piece to allow it to rotate around a single axis. That way you only have to deal with centering each hole on one axis, not two.

Bean

[naterealbig]

The 'blind tap' sound like a pretty good idea. I'm assuming that a blind tap means that there is no need to drill a hole first. Also, using the drill press with a central axis for the flange sounds like a great idea as well. The next time, I will probably do the project a bit slower and allow for feedback before I move to the next step.

[naterealbig]

Thanks so much everyone for your words of encouragement! It took quite a bit of planning and time, but I think it is going to be awesome. We tried out the skimmer on a 3600gph dart pump, but it didn't seem to push it hard enough. Even with only one beckett running it still wasn't pushing out much foam. To be honest, I don't think the pump was running well, and Rob said that 1: the pump was flow biased, and 2: he's returning it due to a leaky seal. The only other pump he had was a 1.5 hp pump which did the trick, but was simply way to big. He had to keep the MH's turned off on his large clam/coral tank due to the breaker tripping on over current. We disconnected the huge 'pool pump' and put a dolphin 2000gph pump on it now. With this pump however, we can only run one tower. Right now I'm looking at a sequence 'marlin' which should be just perfect. We'll see, and I'll keep everyone posted. The pics below are of the skimmer after about 15 minutes of skimming, with the large pump.
http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMGP0203.jpg
http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/naterealbig/IMGP0205.jpg

[BeanAnimal]

Looks good... I can't wait to see the pics when it is finaly tuned and in operation.

BTW, thanks for your service!

[naterealbig]

Thanks bean, I imagine it will be a lot more stable once it is 'broken in'. It's really pulling out some nasty stuff, but the bubble size isn't consistent yet and will need some more tuning. And of course, my pleasure.