Overflow question

[easyian]

I was just designing my sump that I will be adding to my tank in the next few months and had what I though was a brilliant idea. Maybe you guys could confirm or deny it. I was thinking of taking the outlet for the overflow and connecting it to the inlet for the skimmer. Eliminating the need to run PH in the sump as gravity would do all the work for you. The only problem I see would be over skimming. So what I came up with is putting a "Y" in the overflow outlet and running a second ball valve at the skimmer inlet to slow the flow. Can anyone see a flaw in this or am I out in left field?

Just a thought
Ian

 

[cleantank]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you must have a counter-current skimmer?? This would not be enough water pressure to run a venturi skimmer. I hope I'm understanding your question correctly.

 

[easyian]

Yeah I was thinking counter current skimmer.

 

[fishfreek]

How far would the water fall before it went into the skimmer? What skimmer where you thinking about?

I belive we had an advisor that did something simular but he had his main tank on the first floor of his house and his equipment was in the basement thus there was a 10'+ drop.

 

[easyian]

I was thinking like 4' drop to the equipment set up under the tank

 

[wseaton]

I think I see what you are doing. Basically your overflow would dump into your skimmer intake, and your skimmer sits on your sump and dumps into that. Right?

This really depends on your skimmer. The vast majority of skimmers work in a 150-300gph range and most overflow systems crank a lot more water than that which is a bad thing for the skimmer.

Provided you don't exceed the GPH rating of the skimmer this should work fine. However, I'm not sure what type of skimmer you have or how you'd inject air into it unless it was airstone driven or an injection type like a Remora.

 

[loganj]

IMO, if this is an air driven CC skimmer and you have a way to adjust the water flow going into the skimmer, it should be doable. I agree with wseaton that the total volume of water coming through the overflow will probably be too much for the skimmer. If you exceed the flow rating on the skimmer by very much, it's efficiency will be reduced to nearly nothing. Contact time is more important than flow...especially with a CC type skimmer.

 

[easyian]

I figured that you could divert the water before it hit the sump (one into the skimmer and the other into the sump) and added a ball valve at the skimmer inlet to control flow so you could get the proper contact time with the air bubbles. Then it could just drain into the sump.

 

[peter101]

ooo
iunderstood that you wanted the outake from the skimmer to be the only intake into the sump...but now that you've cleared it up i don't see anythign that could go wrong
i guess theres only one way to find out for sure :?

 

[Hara]

If I am understanding you correctly, what you are proposing is the design of the way the aquamedic turbofloater works. They recommend that a ball valve be put in line to adjust the flow to the skimmer. I bought one of these with the intent of using a powerhead (just the opposite from your situation) and I cannot find a powerhead that runs low enough ....still workin that out.

 

[easyian]

Hara
Couldn't you use a ball valve to control the flow into the skimmer? As long as it is after the PH you wouldn't have to worry about cavitation and wouldn't cause any stress on the PH itself b/c they are magnetically driven.

Ian