Gyre Surface Skimming w/ Center Overflow

[Nepenthes88]

Hey guys,

I just got one of the Icecap Gyre pumps and I absolutely love it so far. So far I've only noticed one issue and I was wondering if anyone else has come across the same thing.

I'm running the pump horizontally, mounted on the right side of my tank. I have the flow directed up towards the surface of the water and because of this, all of the surface gunk is getting pushed and trapped on the left side of my tank preventing it from flowing into my overflow. I've just been accumulating more and more surface gunk on the left side water surface and am wondering if I should program the gyre a certain way to avoid this. Right now I have it running on short pulse mode at 20%.

I'm attaching a picture to better illustrate what I'm talking about. I've drawn a yellow line where you can see the surface film being pushed to the left, making it impossible for it to go into the overflow.

 

[hijinks7]

So I have two gyre 250s and I have them change the flow pattern each hour. So one might be on 60% ramp up and the other side is on like 20 anti gyre or such. This keeps the flow random enough where I still get like a wall of moving water overhead but it changes enough I see things go into the overflow.

Its nice because I haven't had a jumper and I took off the screen top.

 

[Nepenthes88]

So I have two gyre 250s and I have them change the flow pattern each hour. So one might be on 60% ramp up and the other side is on like 20 anti gyre or such. This keeps the flow random enough where I still get like a wall of moving water overhead but it changes enough I see things go into the overflow.

Its nice because I haven't had a jumper and I took off the screen top.

I see. Unfortunately, I only have 1 gyre. I do have the old MP10 I was using so maybe I'll stick that in the corner over there to see if I can blow the surface buildup away.

 

[steelwrap]

Just a thought. Set it to run forward then reverse then as it pushes/pulls past the overflow maybe more gunk will get siphoned out

 

[bhuyett]

Running in reverse the Gyre isn't strong enough to pull the crud in reverse back to the overflow. I dont know where your returns are, but they should be more than strong enough to cycle the water from that area. You may want to look at adjusting your return flow and point it in that direction where you have no movement or dead spot in the tank.

 

[AdamNC]

Add the mp10 to the other side. I’ve always liked running 2 pumps against each other to create random flow. I too have a center overflow and have my 2 MP40s pushing against each other with the sump out flow pushing from the right side at the very serface of the water.

 

[OriginalUserName]

Just point a small powerhead at the water surface in that area and let the Gyre reverse or stop periodically. I have the same pump mounted horizontally on my back glass and with my return pointed at the surface this is never a problem.