New CC skimmer

[JC Pollman]

This project has been in the works for about 5 months, and now that the kitchen is done, the cars are running again, family and work satisfied, I finally got enough free time to build it. It is a 6 foot tall, 6 inch diameter, counter current skimmer. And so far, it is working better than expected. A few pics:

 

The air stones:

 

My set up: from left to right: ozone reactor, skimmer, kalk reactor:

 

With me in the picture to give a size perspective:

 

This a picture of the 9 inch upper tube 30 minutes after I started it up:

 

Costs: Air pump $200

PVC parts $150

air stones $30

 

The air pump is an Alita 40, and puts up way more air than needed - I had to put a bleeder valve on it. The air stones are 6 inches from Aquatic Eco-Systems.

 

Hopefully my tank mates appreciate it as much as I do

[dbartco]

The new moderator of DIY!

 

We want gunk pics tomorrow. Generic airstones, or especially for skimmer type appplications? And how do you clean collection cup?

[JC Pollman]

There is no collection cup - I have a pipe that goes from the top of the skimmer to a bucket on the floor. There is still some work to get it tuned as I am skimming very wet right now: all foam, but I ended up with a gallon of foul smelling liquid this morning.

 

I bought the air stones at:

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseac...d/9751/cid/2328

 

Side note: everything about my tank is DIY, including the tank: plywood and epoxy.

[DEEPBLUE]

How about a picture of the tank.

 

Eric

[JC Pollman]

The tank is 8' x 2' x 20" and is aprox 200 gallons. It is designed for fish as I wanted to give them as much room to swim back and forth as possible. It has been set up for 2 years and is finally up to the standards I want. I have been running it as a semi-reef tank as I figured if I could keep corals, I would be able to keep the more demanding fish: in particular - butterflies. During the next month I will be getting rid of the corals, and hopefully by 4th of July, have a "butterfly garden". I have had butterflies before, but they are so demanding of the water parameters that they never lasted long. Anyway, here are some pics:

 

 

 

here is the start of the tank:

 

 

 

Here is the front - hard to give 8 feet the proper perspective:

 

 

 

Here is part of the back:

 

[Carl]

Wow - Very cool.

 

Looks like you made it out of plywood, then a coat of epoxy paint?? over the wood.

 

Then did you just glue a piece of glass to the front?

 

Never seen it done this way...Very nice.

 

-Carl

[Caribbean Jake]

JC

very impressive and I have to agree with Doug. You are the DIY Moderator for excellence. Keep the pictures coming. Awesom work.

[DEEPBLUE]

Very nice.

 

Eric

[JC Pollman]

A couple of other DIY products for the tank that I made along the way:

 

DIY Live Rock:

 

 

 

Top off/kalk switches: I used 3 float valves - each attached to a seperate solenoid. The idea is to seperate water level from PH/kalk top off:

1. The bottom one controls the water level so I do not run my pump dry

2. The middle one controls the kalk top-off: I use a ph controler to determine when to add the kalk, but sometimes I forget to add the kalk and without a shut off float switch the controller would just keep pumping water through the kalk reactor into the tank.

3. High water float valve cuts off all water in case either of the other two stick.

 

 

 

My neilsen (kalk) reactor. No need to spend money on acylic tubing, but I do like to be able to see inside to see if I need to add kalk, so I cut a hole in the pvc and glued on a piece of acrylic as a window. I also have a drain on the bottom so I can remove the non-dissolved kalk without dumping out the entire reactor.