goreefer
New member
I was trying to repair a leak on my old Excalibur skimmer, but I had forgotten how Denatured Alcohol attacks acrylic, especially the extruded type.
As you can see the result was not what I wanted. I really liked that skimmer for my frag tank...
So i decided that I would try to revive it and at the same time extend the height to increase the dwell time of the foam.
I decided that since this was going to be a low buck repair that I would try to make a new tube from PVC rather than acrylic.
The what seemed to be the most difficult part was to glue the input PVC in at an angle to the main tube. I drilled the large pipe with an 7/8" bit at an angle, and then glued in a short section of 1/2" PVC.
For the return pipe I drilled a 1 1/4" hole in an end cap and glued in a elbow. I actually came out better than I thought. I could have used Uniseals, but they had not arrived yet and I was inpatient and wanted to get started.
Over all the rebuild came out well. This is a picture of it when I was testing for leaks:
I'm going to let all of the solvents evaporate for a few days and then put it back on my frag tank.
I may eventually add another external pump for a recirculation modification when I get the chance.
As you can see the result was not what I wanted. I really liked that skimmer for my frag tank...
So i decided that I would try to revive it and at the same time extend the height to increase the dwell time of the foam.
I decided that since this was going to be a low buck repair that I would try to make a new tube from PVC rather than acrylic.
The what seemed to be the most difficult part was to glue the input PVC in at an angle to the main tube. I drilled the large pipe with an 7/8" bit at an angle, and then glued in a short section of 1/2" PVC.
For the return pipe I drilled a 1 1/4" hole in an end cap and glued in a elbow. I actually came out better than I thought. I could have used Uniseals, but they had not arrived yet and I was inpatient and wanted to get started.
Over all the rebuild came out well. This is a picture of it when I was testing for leaks:
I'm going to let all of the solvents evaporate for a few days and then put it back on my frag tank.
I may eventually add another external pump for a recirculation modification when I get the chance.
