ASM Gx Mods.. Bubble Plate?

So while trying to hide my jealousy/desire for one of Tylers new skimmers, I'm looking to 'squeak' a little more from my ASM skimmer.

I already have the gate valve, mesh mod and turned the input to face down with an elbow.. but wonder if there is more.  The venturi seems too narrow (the walls to thin) to drill out further without damaging it and the 'dremel the housing' I'm getting too.  I'm wondering if anyone has done a bubble plate to slow the turbulence down and let the bubbles float up like they do in tylers skimmers.  turning down the spout of the inlet helped, but they still swirl away pretty randomly to close to the top.

Bubble plate was my next experiment for the skimmer, thoughts?


Edited by philhender - April 17 2011 at 10:12pm

Phil I will take that as a complement The problem with ASM's is mainly the Sedra pumps, they just don't push a lot of water therefore they don't suck in a lot of air. The G1x has a Sedra 3500 which is only a 350gph pump. In my opinon the reason you are starting to see bubble plates on a lot of the newer skimmers is the fact that companies are putting pumps on skimmers now that are pumping 700+ gph into skimmer bodies. The added gph of the pumps are allowing more air to be sucked into the pump but also make the inside of the skimmer body much more turbulent and thats why you are seeing much bigger necks on skimmers as well as the bubble plate. If you take my CS-150 cone for instance, it is using the Sicce PSK-1000 pump which is pumping 880gph if you tried to run that skimmer without a bubble plate theres no way it would keep a stable head of foam with that much water going through it. On your ASM at 350 gph, I am not sure it would do a whole lot performance wise, ASM's really don't have a unstable head of foam out of the box. I would be curious to see if it would help any, but like I said I am not sure if all the work would be worth it in the end. If you really want to up its performace slap a Sicce PSK-600 to it with a bubble plate

I have an idea for your bubble plate if you want to try it . What size is the pvc pipe coming into the body off of the pump?

Edited by fishoutawater - April 20 2011 at 12:40am

it's running... ^^^^^ fishoutawater has a bubbleplate  I thought I remembered seeing this somewhere...  It's no problem to take out.. sorta.  my bio-load is light, only 5 fish in the 55g.

Tyler, your idea similar? I've also contemplated 'replacing' the airline barb on the venturi to handle slightly larger diameter hose.  Thoughts like these literally keep me up all night.