10 cent skimmer

if you wanted to see some pics of my 10cent skimmer, well here it is. i tried this for gits and shiggles. its two 20oz soda pop bottles (thats the 10 cents, for deposit) siliconed together with a 4" length of 1 1/2" dia pvc in the bottom. i had all the parts laying around from other equipment, diy's, caffine fixes...

and if you think it doesn't work here is a month and halves worth of gunk that it pulled out. thats a 32oz gatorade bottle for those wondering.

and how does it work??????????

lol...some guy made a huge working skimmer out of a 5gallon jug on the RC threads.

its similar in design to a lee's and aqua medic's mini/midiflotor hang-in the tank skimmers. the airstone is in the pvc tube. when the air bubbles rise, water is drawn up the pvc tube. similar to an air powered ugf. the foam forms in the mouth of the bottle. the "cleaned" water exits from the outlet holes near the bottom of the bottle, er... i mean skimmer .    the collection cup is part of another bottle siliconed to the top.

performance wise its not the most efficient. it depends on the water level in the tank whether it produces a wet or dry foam.

(Edited by joshnemily at 6:12 am on Mar. 23, 2002)

hmmm interesting gadget...  that picture you posted of the collected gunk, you said that was 1 1/2 months worth?  what size tank was it running on?  i've always heard that you have to have a pretty long reaction chamber to get airstone skimmers to do anything useful.  do you believe that your water chemistry improved as a result of this device?  if so, did you test for anything such as nitrates?  more info would be appreciated!  i might try it out sometime.

yes, that was 1 1/2 months worth. more often then not it produces a wet foam. its running on a 10gal tank. when i first put the skimmer in, i had a mushroom rock and ricordia rock in the tank. i wasn't doing weekly water changes like i am doing now. the scum that was coming out at first had this nasty smell to it. it smelled like a mushroom anemome out of water. if you don't know what thats like, pull one out and smell. i don't know if it is toxins that they release or what but, they stink.

water quaulity wise, i couldn't tell if helped or not. skimmers directly don't reduce nitrates but, that has never been a problem for me.

i do think skimmers are helpful for nano tanks. they help the biological filtration by removing pollutants from the water before they get a chance to be broken down or accumilating (easier on the bio-fil).

i heard ppl say that they remove trace elements from the water but, wouldn't weekly water changes be putting them back in. i bet that half of the nano reefers are adding trace elements even if they are doing weeklys. (good synthetic salts have all of the TE's in them.) so what does it matter if the skimmer is removing trace amounts of them. they might also help keep a tank from crashing. im not saying that all tanks are going to crash if they don't have a skimmer. they are certainly not going to cause a tank to crash.

anyways sorry for the rambling. the choice is up you.

(Edited by joshnemily at 6:35 pm on Mar. 24, 2002)

i built one of these things over the weekend.  i used a 4" length of 1" PVC though because that's what i had laying around.  i also stuck a 4" long ceramic airstone in the tube.  this morning i noticed it collecting wet foam.  i'll leave it running awhile just to see what happens!

ok that is cool! nice diy McGiuver  

more pics please.  some of it in action etc.  i don't plan on useing a skimmer but have to give credit for the nice DIY job!!

Lunchbucket

Good Job Josh!  I still don't understand how those things work.  I need to study up on them before I try anything like that.  Keep up the good work!  We always like more pics.

Too cool! And I spent around $100 on my 2 skimmers, both of which are on the fritz for various reasons

I do have plenty of PVC and spare air pumps laying around, now I'll just have to take up soda-drinking!

And it's a not really a McGyver job if it doesn't involve duct tape (I loved that show - especially the one where he made an airplane, well a glider really, out of a window fan, some cardboard boxes (I think) and duct tape. So cool!)

lol my fav was when he fried all those ants!!

hey where are the pics dang it....and use some duct tape this time LOL

Lunchbucket

neet, I have a 1/10th of a cent fix.....  NEWSPAPER has an amazing asorbancy rate for protiens. I have used it for YEARS on my reefs. (the sunday funnys and colored pages are not recomended though) A single issue of a paper is good for a month on my 7 reefs. It will pull surface slime off like it was out of style. It an oldie but goodie trick of the trade.

what abut the ink on the paper dosent that go into the tan aswell...that cant be good?

this skimmer is funny. man im not that crafty i wish i was.

Unit,

I'm not sure what the affects of the ink are, but like you, I would be aprehensive about it.

No worries, though.  Go to your local craft store (like Michael's if you've got them), where you can buy blank newsprint paper for dirt cheap.

sorry i don't have any more pics. if/when i build another one i'll take some pics. and it will be held together only with duct tape and bailing wire. :smilewinkgrin:

since my fish decided to breathe air, i have taken out the skimmer. there is not that big of a bio load now. and the only feeding that is done is phytoplex at twice a week. it even had coralline growing on it too. oh well.

hey flaunt, how is your skimmer working out? if you are still using it try a wooden airstone. smaller bubbles, more foam.

someone wanted to see the pics again. sorry i forgot your name, the PM got deleted.

josh and emily, I'd love to see some of the guck this contraption pulled out....let me know how I can get some pics....

bautin2@lsu.edu is my email address....thanks

I'd like to see pictures also. It might be a good skimmer for my 5 gallon.... ???

WigguhNo0ny@aol.com

(The second 0 is a ZERO)

I know this is an old thread but I thought I'd try this for the heck of it. It's Sunday and I'm bored out of my mind

and I forgot to mention I'd like to see plans for this thing

and some pics

Yeah really, the old pics don't work, and I'm dying of curiosity. Hook us up dood!

sorry guys, i haven't visited this site in atleast a couple of months. been busy with other things. i'll repost the pics when get home from work. if i can find them.

for those of you haven't seen the pics, it's not going to win some engineering excellence award. it's not that pretty but, its cheap.

I'm waiting for the pics