Need a drain tapped into skimmer cup

[brewercm]

Wasn't sure what section to post this in so here goes. I want to find out if anyone has a drill and tap that will work on an acrylic skimmer collection cup.
I have a drain plug that is threaded 1/2 NPT male threads if that helps but can pickup any other size that HD has if needed.

Thanks,
Cliff

[brewercm]

Now that I can do, I have some 16 sitting here at the house I can use.

thanks for the idea.

[LoneStar]

Just make sure that the drill bit you use is close to the size of the fitting once the threads are removed. Once you shave off the threads on the fitting, it will be a smaller diameter than the original hole it would thread into.

[matt]

What's your drain plug made of? Probably PVC. Weldon #40 would be much better than 16; it actually bonds to PVC. It's a lot tougher to find, though. You could use a regular tap on on the acrylic, although I'm not really a fan of tapping acrylic in general. In this case it's not a pressure joint, so probably it's okay.

The way I did the drains on my collection cups was to use a PVC fitting that's female 1/2" threads by male "spigot" fitting, that is, it fits inside a female 1/2" PVC slip fitting like a coupler. This way you can drill a small pilot hole in the cup, then use any PVC female slip fit as a template to rout the cup, then you can glue in the fitting with weldon#40, and you're left with 1/2" female threads, into which you can thread a hose barb or something like that. It's very strong.

[v2k]

I have a related question...I just built a 4" diameter 48" tall skimmer out of pvc, and it has a drain on it which works far too well...I cannot get the balance between water flow in and out to produce skimmate rather than tons of watery stuff. Are ball valves not sufficiently sensitive to calibrate? Do most of these skimmers produce watery skimmate? What do you do with all that water? I imagine it cannot be reused...
If fine foam does make it to the collection cup, does that indicate that the air pump is sufficiently strong? I had hoped for a skimmer that produced thick skimmate and which did not pull tons of water out of the aquarium system.

THere are so many variables and I don't know which one needs tweeking...

[hobogato]

if you put a gate valve on the output, you can restrict the drain and cut back on the flow going in.