D
dustybottoms
Guest
Either i am retarded, or this is the poorest designed skimmer. Can someone show me some pictures of the installation?? thanks!@
jarvis
Member
I have a berlin classic. not a turbo. pretty similar though. All skimmers take a while to break in. turn the air ajustment down real low. I would even put the tube coming from the colection cup back in the water to prevent any flooding during the break in period. hook up the turbo pump to the bottom hole. I belive that you need to remove the venturi cone to run the turbo pump. I could be wrong. Run 90s of the two ouputs on the top and have them going down into the water in a sump. DRILL HOLES IN THE PVC TO RELIEVE ANY BACKPRESURE CREATED BY HAVING THE TUBES UNDERWATER.
If your running a hang on I am clueless.
If your running a hang on I am clueless.
D
dustybottoms
Guest
that actually helps alot, do you have a pic of yours functioning? these instructions are terrible!
tangman99
Active Member
Does this help any? What ever you do, make sure you don't overtighten the PVC that goes into the base. It will split very easily. If it does, put some plumbers goop on the threads, add a hose clamp and put goop all around the outside to seal it. That works very well, but you can never take it apart again.
D
dustybottoms
Guest
thanks for the picture tangman, why does it have two exhaust ports? I may seal one off or close it somehow because I am pumping the water right back into the tank. Also, does yours have two small hose ports on top of or near the main exhaust ports? Mine does, and all they do is spit water. any advice would be great! Thanks again!
tangman99
Active Member
Originally posted by DustyBottoms
thanks for the picture tangman, why does it have two exhaust ports? I may seal one off or close it somehow because I am pumping the water right back into the tank. Also, does yours have two small hose ports on top of or near the main exhaust ports? Mine does, and all they do is spit water. any advice would be great! Thanks again!
I don't think you can plug either of these off. If you do, the backpressure is going to blow water out of the relief nozzles. If yours if blowing water out now, how do you have the returns going back in the tank? They must be out of the water completely or you can add extended PVC pipe to keep the noise down. If you add additional PVC, you must drill holes or cut slots that are above the waterline for air to escape and relieve the backpressure. Otherwise, you get water out of the relief nozzles. Cutting holes and slots under water does not relieve enough pressure.
Any more questions, just ask. I have been to hell and back with this thing.
A couple of more things. Open the pump and check the impellor. Make sure you have the new black one with 18 blades. Some still have the original white one with 12 blades that has a very high restart failure rate when the pump loses power thus leading the the redesign. Also if your overflow collector does not have a drain barb on the bottom to attach a hose to collect in a jug (see mine in the picture), you can call redsea and they will send you one free of charge.
D
dustybottoms
Guest
Thank you so much for helping me out, the instructions on this thing are just absurd. Well, my tank is drilled, two holes, an intake for the sump and a return to the tank. Anyway, I have one of the holes going to my sump, which houses the skimmer, fed by gravity (this is the plan anyway). Inside the sump, the pump for the skimmer will be active, feeding the skimmer which, will return the water to the tank. Like I said, this is the plan, i guess. The problem is, with two exhaust ports on the skimmer and one hole on the tank, i must either put a Y connection on there or plug one of the holes off, its really a screwy design on red sea's behalf. One of the difficulties I forsee is with the sump. Being gravity fed and returning to the tank with a pump, how does one match the flows? I would imagine it would eventually overflow or run dry at some point. Any input or pics of your system would be very appreciated! Thanks!!
tangman99
Active Member
Ok. I see your problem now unless I missed something. You can't use the skimmer to return the water to the tank from the sump. It just won't work that way because of back pressure. You need an addtional pump to return water from the sump to the tank.
Here is how it should be:
Water overflow from tank and gravity fed to sump.
Skimmer pump in sump skims the water and overflows back into sump.
Return pump returns water to tank.
These are two complete and mutually exclusive systems. The skimmer is a system by itself and the overflow and return pump is a system by itself.
As far as matching the flows, you don't. You just need to make sure that the overflow gph rate is greater than the return pump gph. That way when the pump is returning water at whatever rate, the overflow can keep up with it. Keep in mind that pumping water uphill from the sump will reduce the gph rating of the return pump. Most give the gph for different heights.
Hope that clears things up for you. If not, ask any other questions you might have. If you want to talk about it real time, I'm on Yahoo messanger under the name tangman99me. I will stay on for a little while in case you read this early.
Here is how it should be:
Water overflow from tank and gravity fed to sump.
Skimmer pump in sump skims the water and overflows back into sump.
Return pump returns water to tank.
These are two complete and mutually exclusive systems. The skimmer is a system by itself and the overflow and return pump is a system by itself.
As far as matching the flows, you don't. You just need to make sure that the overflow gph rate is greater than the return pump gph. That way when the pump is returning water at whatever rate, the overflow can keep up with it. Keep in mind that pumping water uphill from the sump will reduce the gph rating of the return pump. Most give the gph for different heights.
Hope that clears things up for you. If not, ask any other questions you might have. If you want to talk about it real time, I'm on Yahoo messanger under the name tangman99me. I will stay on for a little while in case you read this early.