What's your best Modification?

[Victor Noda]

As ridiculous as it may sound, mine is buying a bottle of orange juice and using it for a baffle around my little Fluval Slimmer! It first got rid of my microbubbles, allowed me to concentrate my Biopellet Reactor outlet a single area, and I later attached a perpetual cup skimmate removal via my doser.

 

[Big G]

Great question. Hadn't thought about it in awhile, but it must be the sheet of neoprene rubber I cut and glued into a tray shape and put into the bottom of my stand for the sump to rest on. It's a backup for overflow in an emergency and to keep the stand's wood nice and dry. It's worked so well, I hadn't thought about it is months. Got the neoprene from BRS and used neoprene glue for wetsuits to glue the sheet into a tray that's about 3" tall to catch overflow if necessary.

 

[Nem0]

I DIY'd a reef glass skimmer! works very well and only cost about $15 in materials

 

[Victor Noda]

Okay, here's my latest mod. I got tired of cleaning out the mulm from my Biopellet reactor and watching it get clogged down into a brick without any movement. So I created my Green Lantern Power Ring to move around a magnet that cleans off the Biopellets and wahla! It just humms along again until the next time it gets mucked up! Tada! hehehe.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Haha! Cool innovations!

 

[kchristensen8064]

As ridiculous as it may sound, mine is buying a bottle of orange juice and using it for a baffle around my little Fluval Slimmer! It first got rid of my microbubbles, allowed me to concentrate my Biopellet Reactor outlet a single area, and I later attached a perpetual cup skimmate removal via my doser.

I'm curious about this. What tank are you running this skimmer on and do you have any pictures of it in action?

 

[Auto-pilot]

I made a battery backup that is automatic and maintains itself.

runs for about 8 hours, enough to keep everything going in case of an emergency

 

[Reef-junky]

As ridiculous as it may sound, mine is buying a bottle of orange juice and using it for a baffle around my little Fluval Slimmer! It first got rid of my microbubbles, allowed me to concentrate my Biopellet Reactor outlet a single area, and I later attached a perpetual cup skimmate removal via my doser.

What did u do with the toaster?

 

[Peace River]

Somehow I attached two pictures won't let me get rid of it

To remove the unwanted picture go to “edit” and then “more options” and then delete the image from that screen. Good luck!

 

[bigdrew]

One of the the “teeth” on my black overflow cover cracked off. I was losing fish to the overflow constantly...I cut a 2” piece of PVC pipe long ways, bent it a little open and slid the PVC over one of the other teeth, fully covering the large gap between the teeth due to the broken tooth. Haven’t lost a fish to the overflow since!

 

[Peace River]

One of the the “teeth” on my black overflow cover cracked off. I was losing fish to the overflow constantly...I cut a 2” piece of PVC pipe long ways, bent it a little open and slid the PVC over one of the other teeth, fully covering the large gap between the teeth due to the broken tooth. Haven’t lost a fish to the overflow since!

I like it! Do you have a pic you’d be willing to share?

 

[bigdrew]

I like it! Do you have a pic you’d be willing to share?

Absolutely. I’m out of town right now visiting my in-laws, but when I return on Sunday, I’ll take a picture and post it.

 

[Aheinz]

Probably my habitat for humanity cupboard to aquarium stand before and after pics. I did my own sump with a baffle kit I bought,

 

[Rollnduff]

I kinda like the way my DIY reef breeders light hangers turned out.

 

[Aheinz]

I kinda like the way my DIY reef breeders light hangers turned out.

That's awesome

 

[bigdrew]

I kinda like the way my DIY reef breeders light hangers turned out.

 

[atoll]

Simple but effective way to mount my Orphek light bars to my Radions XR30s using 2 x flat powder coated bars and longer screws through the X mounting brackets.

 

[Diznaster]

My AWC/Skimmer cup flusher. I drilled a hole on the top of my skimmer cup lid and inserted a standard 360° lawn sprinkler nozzle. A "shrub" adapter converts the threads to standard NPT, then a hose nipple. This connects to a PMUP in the last sump chamber that pumps/sprays water into my skimmer cup when activated. The water flushes the skimmer cup and overflows into the waste canister. The waste canister has optical sensors (high/low) and a PMUP to the house plumbing waste drain. The last sump chamber has an ATK unit plus a high and low optical sensor. I have a 20 gallon roto-molded tank mixed with new salt water. It has a PMUP into the sump and high/low sensors also. Basically what happens is between 9-11pm it waits for the ATO to run (so the level is proper). After that it pumps/sprays tank water into my skimmer cup and flushes it out. It does this until the lower sensor on the ATK opens (which works out to about a gallon based on my sump final chamber size). During the drain/flush the skimmer waste canister is pumping the old tank water+filth out to the city sewer. Then the fresh salt water is pumped in to replace what was drained. After about 20 days I get an alarm that my salt mix tank is empty. I flip a physical switch (breakout input) to turn the AWC off, push a button to trigger a fill solenoid from RODI. When it's close to full I add a specific amount of salt by weight and start a mix powerhead. After a day I turn the AWC switch back on, turn off the mix pump and I'm good for another 3 weeks. It took quite a bit of testing/tuning, and I simulated and programmed for any failure mode I could conceive. I love that I don't have to dump skimmate or smell it when it's getting full in the canister. Plus my skimmer stays pretty clean this way and I only clean it every 3 months or so.

 

[Lorenzo Angotti]

Hi, my best modification would have to be my filter sock replacement, into the sump, besides getting dirty quickly the noise from the down pipe into was a no no for me, so I came up with a drinks bottle filter. So first I drilled some holes at the base of the bottle for drainage. I adapted a rubber cap to the end of the down pipe so I can easily connect and disconnect the bottle from for easy access to do maintenance. For the media to go inside I used a coarse round shaped black filter foam at the base, a filter bag of Fluval media on top of that and a rolled up black coarse filter foam in the inside top of the bottle. Now if the filter bottle was ever to get blocked up of gunge I drill an overflow hole near the top of the bottle so the water can drop back into the sump.
Now the advantages of having this bottle filter, it’s a lot quieter from the down pipe into the sump, you can put any filter bags in, wether you use carbon media or phosphate media entirely up to you, I also place bio bacteria balls inside the filter bottle every two weeks. The media foam I found the best is the coarser ones, the water flows through better, you just have to experiment a bit. Also you don’t have to change your filter bottle as often as the sock filter, weekly maintenance is what I do and you just rinse your foam, your filter bags once a month or as and when your water quality is affected. Here are some Picts and hope it gives people ideas. Oh if you are wondering where my skimmer cup is in the last picture, I took it off so you could see the filter bottle hooked up.

 

[Tjakes680]

Great question. Hadn't thought about it in awhile, but it must be the sheet of neoprene rubber I cut and glued into a tray shape and put into the bottom of my stand for the sump to rest on. It's a backup for overflow in an emergency and to keep the stand's wood nice and dry. It's worked so well, I hadn't thought about it is months. Got the neoprene from BRS and used neoprene glue for wetsuits to glue the sheet into a tray that's about 3" tall to catch overflow if necessary.

Can you post a picture of it