DIYed beckett Skimmer

[ZeRoC00l]

Some initial pic before the review

[ZeRoC00l]

Stripped down

[ZeRoC00l]

Cup with milk bottle for size comparison

[ZeRoC00l]

A close up on the laser cut edges... smooth...

[ZeRoC00l]

Now for the dirt....

setup finished ard 11pm.. the next morning

All this from a tank w/o fish.... only a sea cuke, urchin, n 4 tux snails

[ZeRoC00l]

Now after abt a wk:

Fully broken in, and skimming action at maximum.

I tune for a wetter skimmate

Nasty... Smelly...

Maybe should start to incoporate a carbon filter in the collection cup cap???

[ZeRoC00l]

Really nasty..

** sorry for poor quality pix.. lousy cam

[ZeRoC00l]

What this skimmerskimmed out in 3 days is what my EV180 took a week or 2 to skim out!!!

Very satisfied!!!

Some details:

ht: 3ft

6" main chamber (5mm thick!!)

9-10mm flanges

Final pic of collection cup cap.. gunk building up

[ZeRoC00l]

Ops forge to add:

tuning was a breeze

Just set roughly ard the air valve at 2 o'clock position, water level at the base of upper flange and you're set!!

very satisfied!

[Clownfish]

great work!

maybe too busy studying for my exams that time, too long nv log in liao...

[ZeRoC00l]

A update on skimmate.... 1wk not at home and I get this much S#$t

[patrick123]

That looks like beckett skimmate alright. Welcome to the club bro.

You should monitor your nitrate, in no time, you will start to miss it since it cannot be found anymore.

BTW, did you DIY this yourself? Really good job.

Cheers,

Patrick

[ZeRoC00l]

That looks like beckett skimmate alright. Welcome to the club bro.

You should monitor your nitrate, in no time, you will start to miss it since it cannot be found anymore.

BTW, did you DIY this yourself? Really good job.

Cheers,

Patrick

Miss my nitrates... NEVER!!!

Nah, no time to DIY myself.. 24/7 NSF now...

Bought from a fellow DIY reefer

** PM me if u wan to have a look in person A work of art IMO, a giant in comparison to my little tower

[patrick123]

Yeah...I know what you mean. My 4ft tall, 8in dual beckett stand out like a lab equipment even for my 6ft. Every one who come to my house check out the skimmer first before they look at the tank. hehehe

But it is great. No regret except now the price is so much cheaper especially some of the fellow reefer are selling their prized beckett at a fraction of the cost after they switch to needlewheel. It is a great time to go in and invest.

The great thing is never have to measure nitrate again.

[Cookiemunster]

A update on skimmate....      1wk not at home and I get this much S#$t 

bro looks good

no offense though but the skimmate you collected in 1 week is what some of my customers collect in 1 day on a md55. And requires no break in time. ie after installation only less than 5 minutes and its skimming out already.

Can ask lightningstrike or triggerfish. hehehe

[tineng]

i think to be fair to him and the marker of the skimmer, every tank has a different condition....even if you have 2 same tank with the same number of fish, you will get different results becuase the owner might feed less.....bio-load is something really hard to quanitify.....

anyway, i think he did mentioned that he is running on a fisheless tank and only some inverts.....

[acroporidae]

bro looks good

no offense though but the skimmate you collected in 1 week is what some of my customers collect in 1 day on a md55. And requires no break in time. ie after installation only less than 5 minutes and its skimming out already.

Can ask lightningstrike or triggerfish. hehehe

that may be due to their tanks having a heavy bioload/ or they were cycling their tank.

In fact, u cannot compare this way. you are diy guru u should know how to make a fair comparison.

Other newbie diyers deserve our support too.

btw, still waiting for your reply on whether i can buy your kalkreactor. If not, its ok.

[roidan]

ya...seeing skimmate alone does little to tell how competent a skimmer is actually....

you can have a skimmer collecting tons of nasty goo but yet there are still stuff in the water column of the system that has yet to be skimmed and that means the skimmer is still not good enough for you.

if you have a skimmer that somehow doesnt seem to be collecting as nasty stuff as others but yet parameters like nitrates are undetectable visually on testkits (simplest check), that means your skimmer is competent enough for your system.

similarly there is no one best skimmer....

my previous AquaC Ev240 or H&S 150-F2001 would probably be considered as very competent for some tanks and users may feel it is the best for their tanks..

but use the same *best* skimmer on a system like mine with heavy loading/feeding and it's easy to see why the *best* gets a weak/under competent performance

and similar using my current skimmer on a farm like CF is definitely inadequate and thus this *best* skimmer on my system ends up a flop in a more demanding situation.

as such, the better or best skimmers are the ones that are competent enough to handle one's individual system/loading situations.

and what is the easiest way to find out? a very simplified way is to check your nitrates...irregardless of whether you are using DSB, macroalgae,denitrator, zeovit system ....as long as your test kit shows visible colour, it just means that there are still too much remaining nutrients that your methods cannot cope and that means the current skimmer you are using is inadequate.

solution, get a skimmer that can handle more than the current one

[tineng]

and what is the easiest way to find out? a very simplified way is to check your nitrates...irregardless of whether you are using DSB, denitrator, zeovit system ....as long as your test kit shows visible colour, it just means that there are still too much remaining nutrients that your methods cannot cope and that means the current skimmer you are using is inadequate.

well said.....my 2 footer has a tang (don't worry- its temporary deployment ground and will go into the 4 footer next month) and clown...i'm running a weipro 2012 and zeovit and No3 is zero when using salfiet test kits!!!!!

[Dispar_Anthias]

wa so good... weird my nitrate lvl always remian at 2.5ppm.... but better than last time when using weipro 2013... 25+ppm!!

[Cookiemunster]

I think you guys have gone way off track. I am talking about skimmers.

Acroporidea its best if you stay out of this and don't try to stir up any flames which you are so fond of. I am not saying not to give other DIYers any chance. I am not so stupid to do that....so please don't try to stir up any fire here. I was sincere in my friendship with you but you screwed it up and treated me like an idiot. Anyway I have seen through you and I don't wish to drag our personal quarrels here.

Tineng, I understand your reasonings and I agree. However, I was commenting on becketts and not suitability to each different tank. Even myself, although I say becketts are good, but I don't even use them myself cos I find them overkill. However a general comparison still can be made even for different tanks when it comes to becketts due to the pure power of beckett skimming. For a good beckett, even a newly mixed tank of salt water will have skimmate foaming out. Trust me I have tried it.

Roidan

Based on your reasonings, any light will do as theres no such thing as a strong light or weak light. It all depends on how high you place your sps near it.

Any chiller is a good chiller as it depends on whether you are cooling a pail of water or a swimming pool.

Theres no such thing as a good calcium reactor or bad calcium reactor as it all depends on what you are keeping.

Theres no such thing as good or evil, its all a matter of viewpoint.

Theres also no such thing as high nitrate or low nitrate as it only depends on whether your corals can survive with it.

I think you get what I mean. I seldom am so neutral in my comments.

Roidan, I disagree with you on the skimmate thing. Skimmate is everything. It is the skimmate that determines how good your skimmer is. Its not the size, the height, how powerful it is being driven nor what pump is used.

If you can have a very small skimmer thats skimming much more thick black dry skimmate than a giant skimmer running on super powerful titanium needlewheels, it would be obvious the skimmer with more skimmate is much more effective. And whether it is more suitable for ones tank is another different story. As I myself do not use becketts. (at least not yet. hehehe)

I am not commenting about the nitrates in the tank. Thats not debatable. I was just commenting that taking 1 week to break in is too long. Nitrates is not just about the skimmer. It also has alot to do with the water transportation to the skimmer, which in turn has alot to do with the water flow rate and the turnover time of the water in the tank and skimmer. A seemingly lousy skimmer can have its performace improved simply by increasing the turnover rate in the skimmer.

However fair enough, a tank filled with dead rotting fishes will of course have more skimmate than a tank filled with just salt water.

But as I said, I was commenting on becketts which due to its brute force skimming method, can be compared generally even across different tanks by observation of its skimmate performance. I have managed to skim foam out even in a basin of newly mixed salt in less than an hour. Thats how I test drive my own skimmers.

Anyway, Tineng and Roidan, please do not get offended by my comments as I have nothing against the both of you and was simply commenting on the beckett performance.

Zerocool is also a friend of mine in case people are wondering..I was just teasing him.

Cheers

[roidan]

ya, that's why i say there isn't a best skimmer out there because being best is subjected to the conditions that it is run in.

just like your example

Any chiller is a good chiller as it depends on whether you are cooling a pail of water or a swimming pool.

all i am saying is that (using your chiller reference), there isn't a best chiller out there because a best chiller for cooling a pail of water isn't the best for cooling a swimming pool and also the best chiller for cooling a swimming pool isn't the best for cooling a lake...

just like there isn't a best lighting system out there, because a FL isn't as bright as a MH and a MH isn't as bright as the sun.

in even simpler terms, what is good for one man, isn't as good for the other. and similarly, what isn't good for one man is actually very good for another.

All i am saying is that equipment have to be taken into context with the usage/operating situation/condition and not just by evaluating the equipment on face value

and thus when you say the following to ZeRoC00l:

no offense though but the skimmate you collected in 1 week is what some of my customers collect in 1 day on a md55. And requires no break in time. ie after installation only less than 5 minutes and its skimming out already.

the situation where your customers collect in 1 day differs from what our friend here collects in one week.

unless, you offer your customers' skimmers to run side by side in the same context and then your customers' skimmers skim in a day what his current skimmer skims in a week....

then, it's a fairer comparison and statement

[Cookiemunster]

unless, you offer your customers' skimmers to run side by side in the same context and then your customers' skimmers skim in a day what his current skimmer skims in a week....

then, it's a fairer comparison and statement

Sure it would be the best comparison and I don't mind. But unfortunately theres nothing to be gained for me to do that. Just like we should have a chiller competition too. Then once and for all can justify all the different sizes of chillers.

Simply put. Too much work and effort for too little gained. Only thing closest to this that can be offered is photos and feedback.

Its always easy for the passer by to say place them side by side and compare. Would you use your existing skimmer to compare with other skimmers? Who is going to carry it, install it, drive it down and set it up? Who are the judges going to be? So what even if the best skimmer is declared? Someone else will just copy the design and then resell it.

Like I always say, it takes months to design something but only seconds for some unethical person to pirate and copy it.

[alanseah]

Well 1st I find your reasoning alot of loop hole leh...

For a good beckett, even a newly mixed tank of salt water will have skimmate foaming out. Trust me I have tried it.

Cause salt mix is not 100% DOC free ma...

Based on your reasonings, any light will do as theres no such thing as a strong light or weak light. It all depends on how high you place your sps near it.

Roidan not saying that... he say depend on the very coral requirement hor..

What roidan say he there is no such thing as best lighting...

Theres no such thing as a good calcium reactor or bad calcium reactor as it all depends on what you are keeping.

Well true given both CR performance the same.. and able to meet your tank requirement.. unless u saying design problem la..

pls talk apple with apple.. not apple with pear...

Theres no such thing as good or evil, its all a matter of viewpoint.

Well why not.. if you come from a teaching that eating veg stuff is good and meat eater are evil.. what can you say..

Theres also no such thing as high nitrate or low nitrate as it only depends on whether your corals can survive with it.

pls la you out of point la.. fact already stated no all coral requirement is the same.. depend on which coral.. some required nitrate while other cant stand nitrate..

I think you get what I mean. I seldom am so neutral in my comments.

All these comments out of points still neutral meh..???

Skimmate is everything. It is the skimmate that determines how good your skimmer is. Its not the size, the height, how powerful it is being driven nor what pump is used.

If you can have a very small skimmer thats skimming much more thick black dry skimmate than a giant skimmer running on super powerful titanium needlewheels, it would be obvious the skimmer with more skimmate is much more effective.

Pls hor you know how to look at skimmer performance or not..??

Like that to say then why still need beckette.. go for weipro la.. since weipro also and confirm give you black skimmate one..

I am not commenting about the nitrates in the tank. Thats not debatable. I was just commenting that taking 1 week to break in is too long. Nitrates is not just about the skimmer. It also has alot to do with the water transportation to the skimmer, which in turn has alot to do with the water flow rate and the turnover time of the water in the tank and skimmer. A seemingly lousy skimmer can have its performace improved simply by increasing the turnover rate in the skimmer.

Again another misunderstanding of skimmer knownledge.. what skimmer turnover rate.. u think main tank + sump water turnover rate huh.. the faster the better...

I have managed to skim foam out even in a basin of newly mixed salt in less than an hour. Thats how I test drive my own skimmers.

pls la.. any given skimmer also can have foam.. so long it's salt water and correct SG level given.. that also explain why skimmer cant be use in fresh water fish tank even the tank also got N03 wa..

Anyway, Cookiemunster, please do not get offended by my comments as I have nothing against you and was simply commenting on the loop hole of your comment.

[tineng]

wa so good... weird my nitrate lvl always remian at 2.5ppm.... but better than last time when using weipro 2013... 25+ppm!!

hehehe...for me pellet by pellet....

seriously.....me love to spend time feeding my fish....