anyone interested in building a scrubber for me?

shane784

shane784

Member
I can probably build you one after the holidays when I have a bit more time to myself if thats not too late.
I'll just do the PVC part with the screen, You supply the pump (this will be based off the screen size, or the screen size will be based off your pump.)
But I'll need to know how long to make the screen and that will dictate how high to make the legs so the bottom of the screen is touching the water in the sump.
Let me know if that will work.

if you can understand my doodle.. max height from bottom of sump to bottom of tank is about 20/21 inches with a max width between baffles of 10" and the water level from bottom of sump to top of water level is 8-9"
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
yeah, I can work with that.
Flower,
Thanks for the offer, but it will probably cost more for the shipping to get it here than the screen at the knitting store. They are pretty cheap.
Ive got a dedicated hole saw just for roughing up the screens (so no oil or anything on the screen)
Ive built a few of these for show at group meetings and stuff and given them away so this will be a long distance version of that :)
Shane, do you have a preference on how the pump hooks up to the legs? Some people use a flex tube, all of mine have had the same 1" PVC.
The one thing we won't know is how high the pump is so you may need to do some adjusting with some rubber or something under the pump to get it just right if I use PVC, if you use flex tube you can just cut it to whatever size and fit it with a scissors
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
Is this going to be a two sided model or one sided?
All of mine so far have been two sided, if you go one sided you need twice as much screen.
 
shane784

shane784

Member
I think I can manage a 2 sided unit ; being that it will probably be most efficient. as far as the pump goes - you can tell me a common brand thay will make this build work the best for your design and the right one for the job and ill just order it off ebay so the varibles are easy.
 
shane784

shane784

Member
Jstdv8,
just wondering if your offer still stood on being able to piece together a scrubber if you find the time.. don't mean to be bothersome - just wonderin..
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
yeah, Ive been meaning to get back to you. working long days at work and have had the flu then the kids had the flu. I'll try and work on it soon. Sorry about the delay.
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
Just wondered if you got one built yet?
I could do somehing low quality for a mere $50,000 is small bills.
(lol)
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
Sorry, I've been pretty busy still, working 60-70 hours a week here. Supposed to be my slow season.
I have the screen all buffed up and I have the pipe bought but I haven't got the slot cut or the pieces cut to length yet.
If you decide to build one yourself or you already have let me know and I'll put this one to use here locally. I thought I would have more time than this.
 
shane784

shane784

Member
I can wait a bit still. only time sensitive subject is I've got my skimmer sold to a guy so I can downgrade to a smaller one and run the scrubber together
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
Wow, so I completely failed the OP on getting him a scrubber. He's probably looking for my name and number so he can come strangle me.
Between my wife being sick with some liver stuff that may be cancerous and busy at work I completely dropped the ball.
If you still need the scrubber I'll see what I can do in the next week here.
Very sorry.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
Got everything done. Just need to cut the dreaded slot in the top pipe and cut the screen to size.
Can you PM your address. This should be going out this week yet.
I'm going to leave a couple of the pieces unglued so you can make changes to it if you need.
None of my pieces on my scrubber are glued at all but i sometimes wish a few of them were, so I'm going to glue those parts on yours.
The pipe for the inlet where the pump feeds in will be at the same height as mine and has a barbed fitting on it for accepting a flex hose from the pump to the scrubber. this is the easiest way to make it fir but you will have to check it from time to time and make sure there is no algae growing inside the tube, since its will probably be clear this could happen. If you can find black flexible tubing the same size for a reasonable price that would be better since no light would be able to penetrate it. I used PVC all the way to the pump on mine, But that's because I knew exactly how high the pump outlet was and all that.
Parts you will need:
1.) short section of flexible hose to go from pump to scrubber
2.) 1 light for each side with reflectors. I use 26 or 27 W CFL as low a kelvin as I can get for a reasonable price (2700-5000)
3.) pump, the screen will be about 8" wide so you will need a pump with at least 280GPH (I like to have more flow than is required, you can always put an adjustable valve on the pump to throttle it back if its too much.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
This 8" screen is a little light for your sized tank, so we are going to have to make it about 12" tall.
I think it should still work just fine. We are kinda limited by the width of your baffles and we still need to fit the PVC legs in on the sides.
The only option would be to make the screen 10" (would be much better screen for your size tank) and then put the legs on either side of the baffle.
If you want to do that then you will need a pump with at least 350gph and i will need to know how wide it is from the outside of one baffle to the outside of the other, so I can make the top pipe wider.
let me know soon on that so I can cut the slot.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
is that the width between the baffles? or the width of the screen?
Also, how deep from front to back is your sump? I turned my scrubber sideways a little bit to get it to fit and get a bigger screen size in there. Maybe we could do that.
 
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