I just purchased an external skimmer to free up room in my sump and am now scratching my head. Does the skimmer need to be mounted over the water line so that the reaction chamber can be fully controlled? The plan was to mount it directly beside the sump. After pondering it for a bit, it looks like if I was to do this, the outlet valve would be about 4" below the water line. I would have to send the outlet up over the sump's edge which I estimate is a good 8" rise. Will this effect the skimmers operation? I'm not exactly sure how an external works. Every video I come across has the skimmer mounted over the water line. Even if the return is off, the water level would still be a good 4" below the neck of the skimmer so I am not concerned about an overflow.
Another question I have is where to place the pump for the skimmer's intake in regards to the skimmers return. It would work out best if I placed the skimmer's pump near the skimmer's return. Would I be doing myself a disservice by doing this considering that a majority of the water the pump takes in was just skimmed? My pumps skimmer will be running roughly 280gph and my sump's return is 400gph. It's an oversized skimmer (150g skimmer for a 130g display(actual 90g w/displacement). I'll probably end up running it only half the day so that it doesn't strip out all the nutrients. That is TBD...
I suppose another option is placing the skimmer's output into the sump's return chamber, but considering that there is a baffle, I think this would mess things up. I've ran reactors before when the pump with outside the return chamber and the return was to the return chamber and it messed things up. Now I pull and push my reactors from the return chamber.
@vetteguy53081 please advise. I do believe that you ran one for a couple years.
Another question I have is where to place the pump for the skimmer's intake in regards to the skimmers return. It would work out best if I placed the skimmer's pump near the skimmer's return. Would I be doing myself a disservice by doing this considering that a majority of the water the pump takes in was just skimmed? My pumps skimmer will be running roughly 280gph and my sump's return is 400gph. It's an oversized skimmer (150g skimmer for a 130g display(actual 90g w/displacement). I'll probably end up running it only half the day so that it doesn't strip out all the nutrients. That is TBD...
I suppose another option is placing the skimmer's output into the sump's return chamber, but considering that there is a baffle, I think this would mess things up. I've ran reactors before when the pump with outside the return chamber and the return was to the return chamber and it messed things up. Now I pull and push my reactors from the return chamber.
@vetteguy53081 please advise. I do believe that you ran one for a couple years.