Re-Plumbing my Reef Devil

[Fraggle Rock]

Im currently Running An ETSS Reef Devil Skimmer with a marineland 4500 utility pump (1175 gph) in my 65 gal, getting a good cup of skimmate a day, But i want more room in my sump and also at the same time I want to directly plumb my overflow drain into my skimmer.

Now I'm no plumber but my thought is as Im only running a Mag 7 as a return, my overflow will not be able keep up with the skimmer.

Now to solve this problem what i wanted to do is run a line from a T fitting just before pump inlet into the sump.
(the skimmer pump will be on the ground directly beside the sump)

???Does anyone see any problem with this?
Do you think ill get too much air from the overflow for a downdraft skimmer to work properly?
Any Idea how big of tubing you think i should use for this?

All suggestions, thoughts or alternatives welcome  ;D

 

[shayneh]

I don't think it will work very well as you would really have to play with the air mixture.... although the idea has some serious potential. If you were running a bean animal overflow (you could plump the full siphon into it provided it was a true 700+gph). I find the mag drive pumps highly overrated. I currently have a mag9.5 return on my biocube 29 and am still running a Vortech MP10 wide open and my clowns and LPS are fine. The reef Devil was the best skimmer I ever owned and I wish I'd kept mine (despite the bubble column collapsing every time I looked at the tank..LOL).

 

[Fraggle Rock]

I Agree the mags are completely overrated, especially after you get any kind of head pressure in front of it.
But they do seem pretty reliable at the same time. Just from what I've read and seen so far.

If I could even get it working right, I would want to invest in some gate valves and it would take some very fine tuning.
The more and more I think about it seems like way too much effort for the benefits it would have for this system.

I'm glad to hear someone else around here has had one of these skimmers.
I find it to be beast like Somedays. Other days i just want to smash it!
Mine is the same way, I look at it and it collapses. I know there's mods to fix this problem online somewhere I just haven't found them yet.
Just after I bought the damn thing I dropped it on the floor and it broke into four pieces.
Glued it back together and it works like nothing happened.
Gotta love the art of simplicity.

 

[shayneh]

LOL my collection cup was all busted up and didn't change a thing. I would save your moolah and buy the eheim compact plus pump. Wicked flow, low energy draw, and hopefully the durability of an eheim. I can't wait to be rid of my mag 9.5 return and either run the Eheim compact plus 3000 or the water blaster hy 3000. I've heard good things about both.