Recirculating skimmer mod. Can you.....

[sfsuphysics]

... Can you simply make a tee off the pump so that it sucks from the volume of water in the skimmer AND the tank? Seems easier than poking an additional hole for drain line from the tank.

 

[GreshamH]

You could but you'd be decreasing the the skim rate by that much more. The science behind skimmers requires so much GPH>body size>riser size>tank size in order for the contact time to be optimal. You'd be skewing part of the ratio while not increasing/decreasing the rest.

 

[sfsuphysics]

So what that being said, is it fair to say that you need to do some calculations for how large a diameter tubing to tee-off your tank drain to your skimmer feed? Surely it can't be the entire tank drain going into the skimmer could it?

 

[GreshamH]

wait, you said T off the protein skimmer pump, now you want to know about hooking up to the OF as a feed? Many people use their OF as their feed for their protein skimmer, talk to Tom (Sparkss) he's running his that way.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Yes, I did say tee off the skimmer pump, but you mentioned issues with that due to skewing some ratios, so I wondered if those ratios were important if you instead tee off an overflow instead.

 

[GreshamH]

Well, if you do the right flow thru and you use your skimmer pump as a recirc there shouldn't be any problems. Tom's Volcano kicks booty set up like it is.

 

[bad coffee]

oops.