Micro Reef Surface Skimmer
An inexpensive surface skimmer that anyone can make.
By Michael Man
Here's my idea of a surface skimmer for a micro reef that's quiet and inexpensive.It consist of:
- skilter
- plastic one liter bottle or plastic container similar size(6" or more in height excluding the neck
- strong air pump
- tubing,air valve,wooden airstone,airline suction cup holder
Instructions:
- hang the skilter on the location you want.
- cut the top of the plastic container off leaving about 6" of the bottom.
- cut gaps into the top of the container(about 2")just like a overflow box.
- poke a hole in the middle of one side of the container.
- pull off the plastic airline holder on the suction cup and stick it through the hole. Then connect back the suction cup with the suction cup on the outside of the container.
- attach the container onto the intake tube of the skilter with the tube inside(side with suction cup facing aquarium glass).
- Turn the skilter on and adjust the height of the container (lowering it if the intake tube is drawing water too fast for the container to skim)
- once a level is found, use the suction cup to attach to glass.
- since the skilter is very noisey,an alteration is made to silence it.This was also suggested by others. to do this the orginal air intake tube is taken off. a wooden airstone is then place inside bottom of the skimmer column.
- connect a airline tube to the wooden airstone from the bottom,then to a air valve and to a air pump. Adjust the valve so that dry foam is collected at the top.(to avoid bubbles escaping from the bottom, push the airstone a little off the bottom).
This might not be the most efficient way of skimming,but since most of the protein,oil and (yuck) is on the surface of the water, skimming them out will not be that hard. The whole setup should cost less than $50.
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