Electrobes

My tank has been doing pretty well. As it grows up, it needs me less and less... which makes me a bit bored in my free-time as I am usually occupied by something with the tank. I was perusing some older articles, threads, etc when I came across a "micro-skimmer". I eventually landed on this article by Reef Builders:

http://reefbuilders.com/2010/08/02/m...arium-product/

I thought it looked fun, and decided I could make something pretty similar. By no means did I think I could ever.. ever, ever, eeeeever skim my tank with this, but I thought having something like this would just be fun in the tank. If nothing else.. at least the tank would get some aeration!

So I went to my LFS (I try to support them when I can), and luckily found the needed materials (Edit: I did not use the nano-magnet in the end!):



What you see is the small Marineland substrate vacuum, rigid airline, freezer airline, wooden air stones, and I think that's it.

Next I needed to find a way to keep this fun device solid and straight on the tank. I have some acrylic, so I tinkered a bit and came up with this (Not pictured is a small drill press I own):











I then drilled an extra hole on the top of the vacuum to allow for some freezer airline to pass through:







I also have a secret door on the side of the "canopy". I decided to use it to hold (And hide) the supposed skimmer collection cup:



Some pics of the completed skimmer:





Here's everything hooked up, using a Luft Pump I had laying around. Also.. I need to add an elbow to the skimmate exit:



Here it is running in the tank. It doesn't leak any microbubbles into the tank, and looks cool!





This unit probably won't last long as I also decided to give my Deltec MCE300 one last chance after I mod it. If it doesn't work, I'll go right back to being technically skimmerless, and put this fun device back on. Here's a couple pics of the skimmer mod I am doing... adding a bubble plate and dremeled out some more exit holes at the bottom of the skimmer.