[flgoose]

I made this skimmer entirely out of glass. It stands at 32" and holds appromimatelly 14 gal of water. It is a stand alone as I didn't want to use up my sump space.

I bought one of those lamps with sea shells in it at a thrift shop for 1 doll. it's exagon shape. I used the dremmel with a diamond disk (from harbour freight) to cut the bottom off. For the sides I used jealousy window glass I had laying around. Notice the lamp is on the inside and acts as funnel to the built in collection cup. the riser of the funnel to the collection cup was made out of a wine bottle.
The rest was made out of 1/4" glass. The hard part was cutting the exagon shape holes for the connecting pieces and flanges. I used the dremmel and diamond disks for that. The gaskets are made out of rubber gasket material from ace hardware. Pump is a needle wheel ocean runner 700 gal/hr

this is how it works. The water comes down from the display on to the tower upper pipe ( on right). The pump receirculated the water within the tower injecting bubbles. The water than comes out of the skimmer from the pipe on the bottom box (on the left) and on to the sump. the repair coupling is to adjust the water level in the skimmer. the outlet from the collection cup is going to go into a bottle for easy diposal. the piece of PVC pipe under the top flange is stuffed with foam and acts as a muffler for the air inlet. without it, it sounded awful. Being exagon does not apear to make any difference. the water seems to spin around the tower evenly.

I tested it and at first I couldn't understand why I had so many bubbles but no foam. Than I realized that the water I had just mixed to test the skimmer with was as clean as it could be. So I got a few shrimps from the freezer, put it trough the blender, liquify them and pour the mess in the skimmer. the result was foam galore. The best part was that it removed all of the liquified shrimp from the water in about 45 min. I was amazed it done it so fast.


What do you guy's think?

[Poseidon]

Looks like you had fun building it. What is the "wood" colored piece that holds the tower to the base?

[newbie]

Square skimmers rule.

[flgoose]

The wood color piece is actually a rubber gasket.

Yeah it was a lot of fun building it. I could have used a bigger pump on this though. I cant let it fill as much as I would originaly have like to. the tower is about 10" in diameter and the weight of the water column ends up not letting the pump suck air if I over fill it. but it worked out anyway. the extra space gives the foam a chance to shed excess water thus producing dry foam.

[charlie]

Looks pretty darn cool. That is american ingenuity at its best, good job!!!

[zhenya]

I like it as well. Have you thought of maybe modifying the impeller in the pump?
Instead of making it a ventury skimmer you can have it as needlewheel skimmer?

[scubadude]

Originally Posted by newbie

Square skimmers rule.

I think its hexagon....Sweet job goose

[charlie]

I think it's a hex, not to be to picky

[The R/C Man]

Very coool! Get some pics of it in operation...