HVAC STRAINER SIZE

We kept a boat at Ft. Pierce a couple times. The jelly fish were a pain. The slotted covers do not work for those critters. The best strainers I've had were the Sen-dure outboard covers for sea cocks. She perforated bronze strainer slides in a track that can easily can be removed by a diver if need be. I kept a pair of spares painted to change out when needed. Installs requires a haul-out.

Jelly-fish are just a bog blob. They will clog any screen, inside or outside.
The outside strainers could be helpful on self clearing while under way, at some speed.

I remember installing dual sea cocks and strainers for a couple of gen-set installs to help with lowering the velocities and sucking up sea grass.
A larger inboard serviceable strainer will be an idea.
Or, like dual Racors, If needed, Dual Perkos could be an idea also.

Keep your fingers out of the jelly, It will still burn ya for a long time.

Any idea is going to cost more money. How you want to spend your bux would be a good question. Any plan still requires somebody to service the strainers/screens.

Good luck,,

You could check out the flushing system that I explained in this post .
That installation is actually referred to the engines, but I have something similar also for all other sea water cooled bits (chiller, genset, and even the shaft seals).
If you run it with the chiller turned off and the seacock open, the fresh water has no way to go other than backwards, hence actually flushing both the strainer and the seacock.
No idea about how effective it can be for cleaning jelly fish, though, 'cause that's a problem I never had.

I like the back flushing idea but you would need more pressure than a garden hose I would think. If you were starting from scratch the ac raw pump could be plumbed w 2 water sources and thus flush one.

The South Bay and Sen-dure strainers are basically the same type, I never had a problem with those type with jellyfish, only the open thru-hull or slotted strainers. With no outside strainer would just load up the inside strainer quickly. I would always have these type outside strainer on all thru-hull supply sea cocks. Especially if you area has lot of sea grass.

Very good point.
Never allow your gen-set thru hull water to be forced or scooped into it's raw water system.

Good point. We have to use them, we have lot of suspended eelgrass at times that can clog the smaller generator strainers and cause an overheat. Have had that happen when on anchor for several hours. Got to have that ac!

I had this type set up on my old boat. Just a couple valves and a hose. I could attach the hose to the shore water, hit the valve and away they'd go.
The shore water pressure was pretty darned good tho and it sent those jellies back to Mama.