TurboFlotor?

[matt]

First of all, are you sure you can't afford even a little monster? Second, I think I'm making one for someone who has a turbofloater and he'll probably sell it. I'll let you know; probably in a week or two I'll know more. Josh, why don't you try making a skimmer? Advice is free, and I could even do some machining for you with my templates.

Right after I post this I'm going to see if I can find out something about those skimmers.

[matt]

Here's a photo of Jim's new skimmer he sent me. I guess this is just after he set it up to test it in his garage. This one is 29" tall, 12.5" foam tube.

[matt]

I don't really have a set price as of now, but it's really tough to make them cheap. Just the raw materials; acrylic plate and tube, fittings, gate valve, etc, are more than $200 for a small skimmer. 3/8" black cast, ($200+ sheet) 1/4" wall 6'" diameter cast tube ($3/in), many unusual PVC fittings, it really adds up. So there's definitely no way it would be even close to the price you can get on the turbofloater. As far as the "micro-monster" goes, the first one I built using a 9" tube improved GREATLY when I added a 3" extension, so now I don't make them any smaller than 12" tube. For a beckett skimmer, you need some real flow through the injector, and therefore without a sizable reaction chamber (big tube) you get lousy contact time and too much turbulence. BTW, that's a design flaw with some of the smaller beckett skimmers on the market, and a real problem, IMO, with aquaC skimmers. I know these guys are trying to reach a market by building smaller skimmers, I just think that size is really important to skimmer performance. Probably the best performing skimmers out there are the huge airstone skimmers driven by piston pumps, with slow flow through the skimmer in a several gallon chamber. You can build those out of PVC cheap. Did you ever hear a piston air pump, though? Probably best to put it in the garage and let the neighbors complain!

[matt]

What is it that Click and Clack the tappet brothers say? "It's the cheap man that spends the most..." Why don't you build a big PVC airstone skimmer? You can run it on a few tetra luft pumps, maybe. I want to see one in action.

[GaryP]

Matt,

When you say airstone do you actually mean lime wood?

Gary

[adaminaustin]

Matt,
Now you are talking. Car Talk is the best. I have been laughing at that show for years.

[Tim Marvin]

Wow Matt! Great work. I have to get one soon.