Crazy skimmer idea....

[Racso]

So today, I was thinking about protein skimmers and this idea came to mind. I'm sure once I post it someone will steal it and make millions because that it my luck, so if you want to do so.... $500,000 and its yours. Anyway, I do not see any reason as to why this will not work:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/Racso/newskimmeridea.jpg

Left is side cutaway and right is top cutaway. The Idea behind it is to have either one pump or four smaller pump pumping into 4 tubes that rise. That part is like 4 normal protein skimmers. However, in normal skimmers, all the bubbles and main reaction area are in the center, and the first "overflow" area is just so bubbles rise back up and do not go into the tank. However, these bubbles are in the water longer, thus they collect more. In my design, I have the bubbles stay in the water longer

Now there are some things about my initial design that I did not actually put on the picture. First is where the water enters the side chambers. In the picture, water will shoot straight up, but what would be better is have an elbow in the chamber, or a tube that rises to the top of the side chambers, but shoots down. Second is that there should be a baffle after the side chambers to promote the water/bubble to go into the center chamber rather than just going straight up.

Anyway, any ideas? Suggestions? Am I just crazy?

[Racso]

Also, this is an early design and I know it could be made a LOT smaller, but I drew it down on paper and then copied it to MS paint so I wouldn't forget the idea.

[dogstar74]

I think air bubbles would get trapped in the effluent chamber away from the out-port. That may cause a small problem. But looks inovative. I will stew about this one for a while if you don't mind. I'll come for my 500K when I get back to you. :) Nice idea

[Racso]

again, EARLY design and also an easy fix to that: angle the effluent chamber top. Also, like I said, it could be made a lot smaller by having the 4 inner chambers outside of the whole thing, or just make the effluent chamber walls smaller. Thanks for that tip though, have to incorporate that into it!

[BeanAnimal]

The same basic flow pattern manifests itself in tall RC and CC skimmers anyway. The rising bubbles create an upcurrent but the water still must return to the recirc pump or exit at the bottom of the skimmer. This "counter current" keeps the bubbles from rising as fast.

In your design, there is no counter current in a large portion of the design. Rather the bubbles will cause an upcurrent in your input tubes. The center chamber may have some counter current but that will depend on the size of the chamber and the volume of water it has to handle.

In other words, it does not appear to be a bad idea, but it may be a lot of work for nothing.

The complexity could be decreased by injection molding I suppose... but you will first need to build a proof of concept.

Let us know how it goes.

[Racso]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/Racso/newskimmeridea.gif

Did some tweeking. Left is new cutaway of skimmer, right is outside veiw of skimmer (imagine all white skimmer, not clear), and bottom is top view.