Modded seaclone

[cthegame]

Out of boredom, I spent a good deal of time today playing around with my old, already modded seaclone skimmer...Fooled around with so many different variations I finally came up with this:

This was within 15 mins of running...Cost: 1 plastic bottle

Collection cup:

just had to share the difference.

Seaclone skimmers are crap. Mine is not! :)

 

[yote]

Thats a mess of foam.

 

[bobby]

Looks like that seaclown might be able to do some damage. Great job! What mods did you do?

 

[Teixeira29]

I had a seaclone and I threw it away because i was mad at it! What mods did you use! I cant wait to hear this!

 

[cthegame]

I removed the most inner tube of the skimmer and replaced it with a much shorter tube. The tube goes all the way in the very bottom chamber (where the water & bubbles first enter). This gets rid of that stupid vortex action and allows for a ton more bubbles to enter the top. So the bubbles start interacting with each other not only at the very top but through out the body.

The problem with non-modded seaclone is that there is not that much room for the bubbles to really interact. The second they do (at the very top), the collection cup is already on top. I added more room for the bubbles to interact even more by extending chamber the collection cub connects to. This extention really gives the foam a chance to build.

Oh and the powerhead itself is also modded to allow continous flow & bubbles without the venturi effect (or whatever you call it)

Ill try to take some pic by disasbmling it if anyone wants to see pictures. Let me know.

 

[cgoodman381]

You said it was already modded, yea? Did you mod the pump at all? If so did you go with a mesh or bioball method?

 

[cthegame]

yes the pump was already modded (neither of those two you suggested) just by drilling a hole by the impeller and put the air tube in there instead.

The skimmer was already modded but i mentioned all the mods above. All i did yesterday was just extended the length of the chamber that connects to the collection cup. All other changes were done before.

 

[cgoodman381]

In the future you could try and do either of those mods and you should see an even better improvement. :)

 

[simpleman]

I use mine for a phospate reactor

 

[mng777777]

Ill try to take some pic by disasbmling it if anyone wants to see pictures. Let me know.

I would appreciate pics of all of your mods.

Thanks,
justin

 

[cthegame]

I'll get pics up as soon as i can.

 

[ccCapt]

Color doesn't really mean a whole lot. It's easy to change the color by skimming wet or dry. Wet will be lighter, dry will be darker. One color or another doesn't mean it's working better.
Here's probably more than you want to know about skimmers.
The Development of a Method for the Quantitative Evaluation of Protein Skimmer Performance

 

[cthegame]

Thanx Capt - i always thought wet means its pulling more water and less crap from the water. That link is great, you;re right, it more info than my brain can handle :)

 

[cthegame]

As promised, here are some pics of the mod. After weeks of running this way, the extension of the chamber that connects to the collection cup probably should be a little shorter...

Stripped skimmer. Most inner tube completely removed:

most inner tube is now much shorter and goes in all the way - THe chamber that connects to the cup is extended using a plastic jar (it was a perfect tight fit)

Everything together:

Pump mod:

In action, no more vortex (sorry if its not clear, i didnt have much room):

Collection cup after a week or so:

The cup fills slower than before the mod but the skimmate is really dense and dark. I also dont have a large bioload so it will probably fill faster if i had more than 4 small fish in a 80 gal

I will make a skimmer out of one of these soon :)