I've had a skimmer with recirculating flow(airstone) feed by overflow. Have now disconnected it from the overflow and feeding it with a dedicated pump.
I had constant problems with the skimmer not working consistently, the return flow varied to much even though it was a low flow and the internal water level in the skimmerbody caused havoc with the skimmate production with the small but frequent changes. The problems might have been mitigated by making the exit pipe out of the skimmer a much larger diameter, making it handle the uneven flow better. I used 20 mm pipe for the return flow from an Eheim 1048. The skimmer was a modified Aqua Care ACF1000V.
It will probably work and it is a great idea, but there is a lot of possibility for headaches dialing it in and you might have to do a lot of tinkering with the skimmerbody.
I had constant problems with the skimmer not working consistently, the return flow varied to much even though it was a low flow and the internal water level in the skimmerbody caused havoc with the skimmate production with the small but frequent changes. The problems might have been mitigated by making the exit pipe out of the skimmer a much larger diameter, making it handle the uneven flow better. I used 20 mm pipe for the return flow from an Eheim 1048. The skimmer was a modified Aqua Care ACF1000V.
It will probably work and it is a great idea, but there is a lot of possibility for headaches dialing it in and you might have to do a lot of tinkering with the skimmerbody.