I had a question about adding a gate valve to a skimmer output pipe. I read through the DIY in that forum but that didn’t have the answer.
With the gate valve mod, can you put a pipe on the end of the gate valve to force the water back out under the water line? I can try to draw up something on google sketch to give a better idea, gonna take me a couple minutes though.
What I am trying to do is minimize the amount of salt creep in my stand, so in order to do that i want the outlet from the skimmer to ‘exit’ under the water surface or at least very close to it so there isn’t any splashing. I am also trying to minimize the sound that you hear from the tank and the skimmer creates all of the splashing sound that i hear out of the tank. I just wasn’t sure if that outlet pipe, with the gate valve still had some sort of height requirement to make it work correctly.
What type of skimmer do you have? usually if you put a gate valve on the output that would raise up the water level in the skimmer or create less bubble in the foam to take out the organic stuff that your trying to take out.
You can’t put the exit pipe under the water line or it will render the gate valve mod ineffective - the water in the sump will create back pressure which will alter your skimming height.
Now with that being said there is an easy solution - on the “out pipe” of your gate valve mod rubber band a fish bag - just cut the bottom off of it so it becomes a plastic bag tube. Place the end of the bag under the water in the sump. You will eliminate salt creep from splashing and almost all of the noise.
I couldn’t believe how well it worked when I first saw it done.
As you can see it must be above the water line. It adds back pressure to the skimmer to fine tune the skimming. You must use a gate valve not the ball valve from HD or Lowes. Savko is a great place with good prices for the item http://savko.com/PartList.asp?pgid=1&ptid=1&pid=6
As for the sound if you angle the output against the side of the tank/sump or on to a macro algae it will lower the noise. On the Asm they have a sponge to disipate the noise but I pulled the item and did not use because as it caused the water level to adjust as it clogged and it would become a nitrate factory over time.
[quote=“Cdangel0, post:3, topic:3803”]
I couldn’t believe how well it worked when I first saw it done.[/quote]
Wonder where you got the info from?[/quote]
I didn’t know you couldn’t put the exit pipe from the skimmer under the watre line. That means I have been doing it the wrong way fro a very long time. lOl
I will post some pics later showing my exit pipe from the gate valve under water.
[quote=“houndsbayman, post:7, topic:3803”]
I didn’t know you couldn’t put the exit pipe from the skimmer under the watre line. That means I have been doing it the wrong way fro a very long time. lOl[/quote]
Maybe I should not say can’t (in this hobby). I found as the water level rose or droped the skimmer would overflow or not rise high enough to be effective. If you have a stable sump level with an ATO the back pressure from the water can be factored in. If the water level drops and you manually top off then the skimmer will need to be adjusted often. This is what I have found
My Eshopps PSK-100 outlet is below the inlet so kind of hard to not be under the water line.
Are some skimmer manufactered to have the outlet below water level ?
My sump is sectioned off with baffles to control micro bubbles and the skimmer is in the section where the overflows drain into. In my sump the water level only drops in the section that the return pump is plumbed into, and yes, it is fed with an ATO.
This is great info… my sump is set up just like houndsbayman’s, or at least it sounds like it. My skimmer is in the first section that has the overflow pipe from my tank, water then goes through a bubble trap into my fuge zone, then over a ‘wall’ into my return section. The only major water fluctuation that i get is in the return pump area, which is manually filled right now, but is about to get the ATO treatment in the next few weeks. I have the RODI and the float from AWI, just waiting to get the time to make the install.
Here is a picture of my current sump setup:
I dont think i will have to worry about water fluctuating very much, if at all in the first section, where my skimmer is. If that is the only issue, and others are using the gate valve with the pipe extending below the water surface with no bad results, then that is great. I am doing this on an ASM G1X so it should look very similar to the DIY pictures, only on a much smaller scale.
One last question I do have, did you have to glue the original gray pipe that came with the skimmer into the skimmer to keep it from popping out or is there not enough back pressure to make that pipe move?
Ok, so looking at this pic, what benefit do you get by extending the inlet pipe into the skimmer, pointing it down into what looks like a piece of 4" or 6" pvc pipe? I didn’t remember seeing that in the DIY post.
It was a pic I found on line years ago when I was researching my mods. It is a recirculating skimmer, I just included it because it was a clean pic of the gate valve mod
Ok, so I went ahead and did the mod like the picture that a1amap posted. Unfortunately, I think it may be a little misleading. For those that are interested in adding the extra pipe, I found that if you cut that pipe long and it extends beneath the water too far, it does add too much back pressure and fills up the top cup almost immediately and there is no adjustment in the gate valve to change the reaction. After playing with it a little bit here and there I finally got it to work by shortening the pipe so that its only about 1/2" under the water. Then I could use the gate valve to adjust the foam in the collection cup. I will try to post some pics if I can get something clear enough while it is in operation.
[quote=“ihuntinde, post:15, topic:3803”]
Ok, so I went ahead and did the mod like the picture that a1amap posted. Unfortunately, I think it may be a little misleading. For those that are interested in adding the extra pipe, I found that if you cut that pipe long and it extends beneath the water too far, it does add too much back pressure and fills up the top cup almost immediately and there is no adjustment in the gate valve to change the reaction. After playing with it a little bit here and there I finally got it to work by shortening the pipe so that its only about 1/2" under the water. Then I could use the gate valve to adjust the foam in the collection cup. I will try to post some pics if I can get something clear enough while it is in operation.[/quote]
Ok, so after doing some reading about this mod, one thing was actually missing that I didn’t notice from the picture. If you look at the picture that a1amap posted, on the left elbow, you can actually just barely make out a hole that has been drilled in the top of the elbow. This allows the air to escape and relieve any back pressure that may be building. The person that originally took that picture mentioned that he drilled the hole because his local hardware store did not carry a 1 1/4" slip tee that should be used in the mod. With that hole drilled, or using a tee like shown in the picture below, you can extend the pipe as far under the water as you’d like. Just thought I’d clarify what I found.
Here is a better picture of the hole in the top of the elbow, this is the same skimmer that a1amap posted just a different angle.
Here is a picture of a kit that is sold for a octopus (?) skimmer. I’d assume this would work just fine on an ASM skimmer (or any skimmer for that matter with the stand pipe). You WOULD NOT need the hole in the elbow with this setup.
