Critique My Skimmer Design.

[eznet2u]

Will this work? If not, Please don't just bash it...Help me make it work.
I have a long piece of 9.75", Heavy walled (.75") PVC. This is the design I would like to try. Can you see any design changes that need to be made? Also, could you help me on height, angle of top cut, pump orientation. Any advice would be a major help.

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5905/56407107rj9.jpg

This is NOT to scale.

[dzeadow]

you want your pumps taking bubble free (or as clean as can get) from lower in the skimmer and feed back into the skimmer above that. you want a long dwell time. I'm guessing the inner tube in that design is a bubble tube where the outlets of the pumps will be? If so, you may have to make it a bit taller so you can have the inlets for the pumps in the area surrounding that tube. It looks kind of like one of those typhoon skimmers w/ the top like that, and they seem to work decent when modded.

I may be wrong on this one, but you may want pumps that will pull more air with a neck that big, I'd get a second opinion though. But I just built a skimmer that sits behind my tank and used a QO2200 that pushes 581gph as a recirc and am feeding it w/ a 225gph pump. I'm only getting about 3scfh from the feed pump and 10scfh from the QO. The skimmer could really use up to 20scfh, and my reaction chamber is 5x7 w/ a 3.75" ID neck.

[eznet2u]

I am confused as to the orientation of the pumps. I have read both ways.
To me it makes more sense to inject the air at the bottom. This would give a longer dwell. Correct me if I'm wrong.
As for the "Typhoon" style "Cone", I figured I would be able to control the "Neck" size with the water level.
I have the EnkaMat to mesh the Gen-x.

Should the pumps be Lower/Higher? Which pumps?

[FishAreFriends2]

Is this a insump or a hob? I don't dig the typoon style top I think its better to have a collection cup on top. That slants going to cause some problems in the long run.

[dzeadow]

Most recirc pumps that I've seen have the intake as far down as possible to get bubble free water, if there's too many bubbles in it and you inject air w/ a venturi, it'll probably choke the pump out. Then they put the outlet as close to that as possible w/o using elbows, unless you use a 45 degree elbow in the chamber to give a swirl.

As far as pumps go, if you use 2 recircs I'm not completely certain, but you'd be surprised at how much a recirc skimmer can handle. As far as recirc pictures go, you might want to check out this site just for a quick reference:

www.randystacye.com

For reference, a 3" diameter neck can handle roughly under 20 scfh of air, and a 4" diameter neck can handle right at 30 scfh of air. You have 9.75" of body that you're going to taper to a neck at some point, I'm guessing something along the lines of 40scfh or so is going to be right in the ball park. I'd definitely get more opinions on this since I don't have the knowledge to give perfect advice. You might as JCTewks if you can pm him or get him to stop by, or Luke33, both are pretty knowledgeable of what size skimmer can handle what air and what pumps would be appropriate.

[eznet2u]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11583218#post11583218 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by FishAreFriends2
Is this a insump or a hob? ... That slants going to cause some problems in the long run.

FishAreFriends2 - In sump. What problems would the slant cause?

dzeadow - Thanks , I'll give them a yell...

HEY JCTewks, HEY Luke33

Throw me some help here please... :)