Bulkhead without bulkhead fitting?

[smithcreek]

I'm making a venturi type HOC (hang on corner) skimmer. My design has several chambers. The first is the skimmer chamber. Pretty standard will have a detachable neck and cup. The water will exit the chamber through the side, near the bottom then will be piped through a gate valve and re-enter the second chamber through the side, near the bottom. Here's a CAD drawing since it may be confusing.

The reason I'm doing this is so I can raise the level of the first chamber right to the top of the skimmer body, well above the water level in the tank, where I will put the cup/neck/flange assembly without it overflowing the other chambers. The drawing doesn't show the assembly, but it would go on top of the chamber closest in the pic.

So the question is, what plumbing parts can I use to go through the acrylic body of the skimmer to make the outside plumbing between the chambers. I'd rather not use bulkheads if possible. I've seen lots of skimmers/reaction chambers that have plumbing going into or out of acrylic without bulkheads.

What parts and what glue is the best to use?

 

[NeO]

they use uniseal (sp?) I will see if I can find a link for you.

 

[NeO]

that was easy

http://www.uniseal.co.nz/

 

[smithcreek]

Thanks, I didn't even think of those. Those may be the ticket if I can find any locally. Is there any way to do it with glue? Would weld-on two part or weld-on 16 make a watertight joint between the PVC and acrylic?

Would epoxy work?

 

[NeO]

You can try weld-on 2 parts I dont know if the 16 will do it.

 

[nichols]

I've bought 1" uniseals at Lowes in Westboro. Might want to try one near you. Their in the nuts and bolts section in the draw units.

 

[NeO]

that is really good to know.

Thanks Bill

 

[lawrant]

weld-on 16 makes a water tight seal with PVC. this is what I used to make my fuge's bubble trap. I used a piece of acrylic for the base of a 3" peice of PVC which overflows into the fuge

 

[smithcreek]

weld-on 16 makes a water tight seal with PVC. this is what I used to make my fuge's bubble trap. I used a piece of acrylic for the base of a 3" peice of PVC which overflows into the fuge

Great, thanks. Either way, the uniseal or the weld-on will make this a lot easier. Bulheads take up a lot of room and limit the plumbing fixtures you can use. Now I won't have to run the pipe around that 90 in the CAD drawing. I can just go out and back in on the same side. With bulkheads I didn't have the room for that.

 

[Gina McReeferson]

Be careful with this joint, PVC to Acrylic joints with weldon are fragile, not like a solid acrylic to acrylic joint. I would suggest making the tubing a very tight fit in the housing if you go this route.

 

[smithcreek]

Be careful with this joint, PVC to Acrylic joints with weldon are fragile, not like a solid acrylic to acrylic joint. I would suggest making the tubing a very tight fit in the housing if you go this route.

Definately not planning on doing it without some fittings. Just trying to do it without bulkheads that take up a lot of room for the size of pipe that goes through them. I don't know the names of all the plumbing fixtures, but I'm thinking of using a 90 elbow slip x FPT on the outside, and threaded bushing inside so the weld-on would only need to make the whole thing waterproof. The weld-on wouldn't be stressed at all.

I guess my next thread will either be "Check out my New Skimmer" or "Skimmer Disaster"

 

[NeO]

Be careful with this joint, PVC to Acrylic joints with weldon are fragile, not like a solid acrylic to acrylic joint. I would suggest making the tubing a very tight fit in the housing if you go this route.

totally agreed!!!

And for the record, did you check the size of the holes for the Uniseal??

for 1" pipe you need 1.75" hole!!

 

[smithcreek]

did you check the size of the holes for the Uniseal??

for 1" pipe you need 1.75" hole!!

1" pipe is more than 1-1/4" OD already so that makes sense. Thining about it a bit more on the skimmer side I'll probably just go with a PVC elbow facing down on the inside, a piece of pipe as a coupling, and an elbow on the outside. For the side where it returns just an elbow on the outside, pipe for coupling, and chop off a 1/2" piece of a coupling for the inside.

The pieces of pipe would be short enough so the lip of the elbow would rest on the acrylic. Then just put a bead of 2-part or #16 weld-on for waterproofing. I'm using a CNC router to cut the parts so tight fit is not a problem.