[pisomojado]

After buying a seaclone 150 supercheap on ebay and not knowing jack squat about skimmers at the time (my lfs uses them! thought they were quality)

I have made a few mods to my skimmer that actually make it perform well.
If anybody else is in the same boat that I am, I now get about 2.5 cups of skimmate a week compared to about .5, and I no longer have a protein skin on the surface of my water.

first, needed to get rid of the crud on surface of water, so I made a skimmerbox. All you need is a dremmel, or a scissors if you are very patient.
I Got 3 pack of rubbermaid type storage containers, 3x3x6h at walmart 89c. I cut a hole about 3/4in from the bottom to fit the rio pump inlet thru, and attached the ventrui without the sponge on the inside of the container. I then made 1/2in "/" slits all around the top end of the container. Reduce the height of your container to fit your tanks water level then cut the slits. Works like a charm, and extremly cheap. No more surface crud on the water.

secondly, the pump doesn't have enough juice to produce good amounts of foam and keep the water level high enough for it to hit the collection cup. In the lid of the collection cup I drilled another hole opposite of the vent hole already in it. I then ran a section of airline tubing down the hole, through the collection cup, and into the very bottom section of the skimmer, with an airstone attached to the end. I hooked up an old airpump I had to it with an open/close valve so that the amount of air entering it can be regulated. Voila! you can now control the height of water/foam in your reaction tube Ive found optimum skimming when the reaction tube is full of bubbles to within about 2 inches of the bottom of the reaction tube (originally about 7 inches) and the water level is just below the top of the inner tube (originally 2 inches below)

I hope this helps somebody out, and as I've seen no mention of a cheap skimmer box or added air online while search DIY's I figured I would post. If not, feel free to ignore

[Samper]

Don't apologize. Someone will read it sometime and it'll help em out.