Really pleased the wrighty skimmer is fully operational, cracking job mate. You also covered part of my next two upcoming vids which made me smile 😁. Stay safe Terry 👍
Hi Scott, and thank you mate. I just love a bit of a tinker, as you know lol. It just wants a bit of a tweak here and there and it should work well. Thanks mate and take care, Terry.
Thanks Dave, much appreciated mate. That's a thought on the clear tube, I'll look into it. I can see a difference in the pond water already. Thanks mate and take care, Terry.
That new skimmer modifcation is working a treat. It's amazing how much protein is being collected and all without the need for the blue barrel...lol. Great job as always Terry. Cheers.
Hi K R, and thanks mate. The new one is working much better than having that barrel stuck in the middle of my filter house lol. Thanks again mate, take care and stay safe. Terry.
Hi Rob, I have to say, thank you for having faith in me. I wasn't sure it would work at one point, but got there in the end. I got up this morning, and the bucket is half full. Really good to see. Hardly any bubbles on the pond now, and I can see a big difference in the water clarity already. Thanks mate, and take care. Terry.
Nice black water from the skimmer there Terry, looks like the Guinness is on you lol ! Your plants will love you a long time for that. Stay safe & well mate.
Hi Terry great video as usual, always very interesting was very surprised to see me pond on your channel absolutely brilliant thanks for the birthday shout out made my week 👍 Thanks again mate and keep going with the best Chanel on RU-vid
Hi John, thank you, you're very welcome and thank you for your channel support, really appreciated. I love your pond, great job you've done there. You have a great day on the 9th mate, and have a couple for me. Take care and stay safe, Terry.
Hi mate, and thank you. I did think about the wooden air stones, but apparently they don't last very long, and I'm not sure if they would put enough air in the tube. So I'm using the original ones I had in the first skimmer. Thanks and take care, Terry.
Absolutely cracking set up that Wrighty. I find with my “up pipe” protein skimmer it works at its hardest through the early hours. The color of that discharge reminds me of when I first installed mine, over time you will notice the color won’t be as dark and the water clarity in the pond will be better than you thought possible. Cheers Frank 👍
Hi Frank, and thank you. That's right mate, I did notice with the first protein skimmer I made quite a while back, the colour did drop off as it went on, and like you say, once it's removed most of the protein from the pond it will get weaker. I did also notice a marked improvement in the water clarity. Thanks again mate, very much appreciated, take care, Terry.
Hi Anthony, and thanks mate. Not to worry, my wife's got me tiling the kitchen next lol. Then she'll want it decorating after that, I bet lol, thanks mate, take care, Terry.
Started watching last night but my PC started playing up so just finished watching today and have to say it's one of your best videos. I found myself so excited and living every minute of the changes you were doing. I look back to the early days of you experimenting with a skimmer and the questions "will a skimmer really work on fresh water" well now we have the answer. Thank you once again mate and please, don't run out of jobs to do as we love every minute watching you work on these projects.😍 Stay safe.
Hi mate, and thank you for your kind comments. It's really good to hear you enjoy the videos. Your support means a lot mate. I'm not sure just where I'm going next lol. But hopefully I'll come up with something. I'll get my brain on the job lol. That's right mate, an awful lot of people told me, I won't get a protein skimmer to work on fresh water, and I nearly gave up the project. Really pleased I didn't now. Thanks again mate, take care, Terry.
Hi Terry. One way to improve your skimmer is by making the bubbles as small and dense as possible. I own Ocean Corals and Reptiles in York. We are marine livestock specialists. So I’ve spent the last 20 years working with skimmers. I appreciate these are salt water skimmers. But the principles remain the same. The very best skimmers all have the smallest of bubbles with as many as possible in the chamber. Using a pump with a pin wheel really spins and chops up the bubbles. Great vids (only just found your channel) I really appreciate the effort you put it. Great job 👏🏼
Ps, a true skimmer pump needs no air pump. They pull water and air in and mixes with the pin wheel. So you could end up saving on the old leccy bill too if you try it. I’m making one for my pond. But first I’m taking a £1500 skimmer from my shop and adding in to my pond to see how it does :)
Hi mate, and thank you for the tip. I will look into it. The bubbles from my air stones are quite small when they come out of the air stones, but do get bigger in the tube as they get to the top. Thanks for your kind comments mate, very much appreciated. Terry.
@@Wrighty you’re welcome mate. It’s raining here in York so I’m sat watching all your vids. Your pond is lovely. Credit to you. I love your motivation! Always working to better your pond 💪🏼 Yes the bubbles are small but nothing like what we use. I don’t know if pond water have to be as small but I can’t see why it wouldn’t. If you watch this vid from 5:30 you’ll see him turn his skimmer on. Look how microscopic the bubbles are and how wide the neck is where the bubbles rise up. I’m only sharing this as I want you to have the knowledge and maybe not need it. It’s all just food for thought. I hope it helps. Please can I asked where you got your Chinese media from? I’m interested in trying some. It looks great for the price!
Hi mate, and thanks for the link, very interesting. Them pumps really do breakdown the air in to the water. Would be very interesting to see how they work on a fresh water pond with all the extra water volume. I've got to do some re-arranging of pipework in my filter house before I do anything else, as aerated water going back to the bakki river is not good. The filter media I said was just over £100.00 is actually £127.00 when I looked. Here's the link mate: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224554341668 it's actually Js koi that's selling it. Thanks mate, Terry.
Hi just to say I have been keeping koi for 30years + and have a reef tank for about 15years +and have had more than 1 protein skimmers and you have to let them bed in sometimes it takes some weeks so give it some time 👍
Hi Andrew, and thank you. Most of the parts are on eBay, and you will need a 100 lpm air pump. I do have the build plans for this skimmer on my website: diypondfilters.com/shop/ if your interested mate, Terry.
@@Wrighty That’s brilliant mate might have to purchase that,just one more thing,are you pumping water in to it or pumping out? I have 2 gravity barrel filters with a varipump just wondering where I would install?? Before the pump I would guess. Keep up the good work 👍
Hi mate, I have a 10,000 lph variflow running at 40% pumping into the fines (up-flow filter), and the outflow from there, goes straight into the protein skimmer. Terry.
I knew you'd crack it Terry, looks a very simple design as well, looks like a winter project for me, oh no, I'll have to re design all my pipework again to fit it in lol 😁 Be interesting to know your tds readings before and after its been running awhile. I've just got a bluelabs guardian monitor for a visual ph reading everytime I enter filter room, after a crash last year and beginning of this season, it also comes with a tds/conductivity probe, so now I'm getting OCD about TDS, ha, ha.
Hi Marek, Lol, I suffer with pipework changes as well lol. With that and the up-flow filter, I should have crystal clear water. Wow! sounds like your going all high tec mate lol. I bet that wasn't cheap. Thanks mate and take care, Terry.
@@Wrighty yeah, wasn't cheap, but gives peace of mind being able to see visual readout, I was testing Ph/kh sometimes 3/4 times a day, it was doing my head in lol 😁
I wonder if you could get a Mazzei Venturi working on that? It’ll save on running the air pump, but I’m unsure if it’ll work the same in freshwater. Worth a look though.
Hi mate, I did try a venturi on the old system, but it didn't work. I think, the 1m head of water in the tube had something to do with it, not sure. I can't run one on this system because it follows the up-flow filter. Thanks for the thought though mate, much appreciated, Terry.
@@Wrighty Hi, you could look at running a manifold with a small separate pump to run the Venturi. Internal recirc on the skimmer, have it pull from the bottom of the skimmer and enter in the middle? Essentially like the commercial aquaculture units. Either way, great to see the stuff you come up with. Thanks for the videos.
Nice thanks for sharing do you think there's more skimmet due to temperature drop i.e in the morning when temp is at its coldest that's what I see take care mate hope your all good👌👍
Hi Matt, and thanks mate. The temp and weather does have a lot to do with the way they work. If I do a pond top up it stops working. It is good to see the crap it's taking out of the pond though. Take care mate, Terry.
Hi Charles, My Oase PondOvac 4 is working really well. It's a great bit of kit and does what it says on the tin. It is continuous vacuuming, so it does pay if you can return filtered water back to the pond, or you can get through some pond water. I have mine out flowing into my sieve filter which puts the water through my filter system and then back to the pond. Hope this helps, Terry.
Hi Gordon, The outlet flow ball valve controls the water level in the chamber, so I think it would be difficult to pump from there mate. You can have the return flow from the up-flow filter running to a shower, as many do, Terry.
@@Wrighty Thanks Terry thought that may be the case. Will have to run the fines filter on my bakki shower pump then use a separate pump for the skimmer from my moving bed and gravity feed the skimmer back to the moving bed.