my little hob diy skimmer

[ihavtats29]

checked on it this morning the foam levelo had droped some made a adjustment and got it about 1/4 inch from the top of the riser tube in the collection cup

 

[A.T.T.R]

those arnt shrooms dude. those look like blastos

 

[ihavtats29]

i dont dought it, its what they were labled from some shop that aquired someones 300 gal tank , so if they are blastos then good i only payed 10 bucks for them

 

[mxndu]

This is truly excellent. The worlds largest HOB:eek1: Is there any way you could elaborate on exactly how u built it? i would love to make the same thing on a smaller scale for my 50G reef. My options are a coralife super skimmer, seaclone, or a prizm and your design looks FAR better then any of those!

 

[ihavtats29]

it was a simple build , my parts list consisted of 4"pvc tube, 2 4x4x2 swept t's , a 4'' cap 2 ) 4x2 reducing couplingsand a small piece of 2 "pvc that make up the main body of the skimmer and collection cup . i placed the first t as close as i could to the bottom of the skimmer with the sweep flowing from the bottom of the tube ( return line) , i set the next t about mid way on the skimmer with the sweep flowing up to the top (supply line), i cut a section of 4'' pipe to extend from the top t to about 6 or 8 " above the tank then glued the 4x2" coupling to the top shown,

now the body was built and now for the collection cup i took the other 4x2 coupling and with a dremel i removed the lip on the inside of the 2" end alowing the piece of 2" pipe to slide thru the coupling i glued it about center of the 2 " pipe about 6" from the bottom

i the figured the hieght of the outer portion of the cup that i wanted and trimed the top portion of the 2' riser about 1 1/2" from the top of the cup

the collection cup now just slips onto the top of the skimmer and easly removed and for 2 days has not leaked. i next built the return line comming from the bottom t reduced it to 1 1/2" tubing and a few 90's i installed a ball valve to control the skimmer and found a gate valve would be much easier to adjust the ball valva jumps in 1/4"s at a time and takes a lot of playing with to get it adjusted right, ill be adding a gate valve in the future

the pump came with a 3/4 barbed fittingso i ran the supply line from the pump the the skimmer in 3/4" line with a ballvalve to turn it off for maintaining the unit the completed unit looks like this

 

[Pbrown3701]

ihavtats - after looking again at your design, i have one more suggestion. You might want to consider moving the input to your skimmer closer to the top. You want to maximize contact between the bubbles and the "dirty" water. The longer contact path, the more efficient and effective the skimmer would be. You could simply buy a couple of 4" couplings, chop out the middle "input T" and move it up. Just an idea.

 

[ihavtats29]

hey i realy apreciate the input this was my first skimmer that i have built that would also take some strain off of the pump and may hepl with the micro bubble issue. how far up do you think i should move the inlet i have a spare sanitary t all i realy have to do is cut and cap the 3/4 " supply and add the t higher in the skimmer

 

[seaskraP]

hows that skimmer working now?
any updates, changes?

 

[Pbrown3701]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12373709#post12373709 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ihavtats29
hey i realy apreciate the input this was my first skimmer that i have built that would also take some strain off of the pump and may hepl with the micro bubble issue. how far up do you think i should move the inlet i have a spare sanitary t all i realy have to do is cut and cap the 3/4 " supply and add the t higher in the skimmer

Sorry, i missed your last post a while back.

I would move the input as high as you can. The key is to move it as high as you can but without it causing too much turbulance near the neck which would hurt your foam head.

 

[ihavtats29]

well so far so good, i have the skimmer set pretty dry i emptied the collection cup last week and it had about a cup of some nasty tea like skimmate in there sorry i forgot to take a pic, ill post one the next time i empty it, im going to definatly install a gate valve on the return im still getting small amounts of micro bubbles but not a huge amount. overall its skimming better than any of the skimmers ive had in the past on my smaller tanks,also ill be doing a mesh mod and a custom venturi for the pump. im also thinking on moding the return of the pump to pull from the very bottom of the skimmer and an internal bubble trap in the skimmer body just above the return t.