Surface Skimming

[fall0n]

For those with drilled tanks, what do you do for skimming the buildup that occurs on the surface of the water? I have flow moving it around, but was wondering how you guys get the particulates skimmed off.

 

[Krish]

If you a sump, then your pre-filter box/overflow will pick up whatever is on the water's surface. If not running a sump and you use a hang on skimmer then that should do some surface skimming for you and lastly, if not using either of the two, you'd probably have to use some sort of mechanical filter like a power filter or canister to help remove particles.


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[fall0n]

Thanks Krish! So from the pic, on the right side, you can see that is my inlet going down to the sump which is inside the stand. Snorkel looking bit. My return from sump is on the far right, with 2 spigots ( one helping move the surface around and one sending water down into the middle of the tank. So no overflow box and the inlet to the sump is underwater.

But as you noted and what I was already thinking, I may have to stick a hob filter to grab things off the top layer.

 

[jrgilles]

What if you got a fine meshed net, and every couple of weeks you manually cleaned the surface? Wouldn't take too long, and the surface scum doesn't build up that fast.

I am running a herbie drain (full syphon) that doesn't get surface scum. Every month or so I plug the drain to kick in my secondary drain, which sucks all the scum off the top in about 2 minutes or so

 

[fall0n]

Good point, that's crossed my mind also. As it is a really slow accumulation, that's probably the most feasible.

 

[kpiotrowski]

can you angle the drain line towards the surface of the water enough that it skims the top without being noisy perhaps?

 

[fall0n]

can you angle the drain line towards the surface of the water enough that it skims the top without being noisy perhaps?

I've been playing around with that a bit, prob will continue over time to see if I can find a happy medium. But manual skimming with a fine mesh net will be the intrum method.

 

[kpiotrowski]

as jrgilles said, you could also just periodically adjust they drain to skimm the scum. This would change the water level in your sump and may afffect your skimmer so I would watch to make sure you don't overflow your collection cup. constant water levels in a sump is key in dialing in most skimmers. You could always turn the skimmer off untill water level is normal too. If your sump has good flow through it and there is no scum on the water surface of it, then you prob don't have to worry much about gas exchange because of scum build up in the display. not ideal, but not emergent.

 

[kpiotrowski]

Another option besides adding a skimmer box is they make sufrace skimmers for cansinster filters you could possibly...possibly mod to use on your drain line such as this Fluval Surface Skimmer, Aquarium Filter Surface Skimmer Add Ons | PetSolutions. hope the link works.

or perhaps use the design principle to make something similar

 

[fall0n]

Only buildup is in the main, I seem to have some pretty good flow in the sump. Lately that's what I've been doing, turing off the skimmer and swiveling the intake up to grab the surface material. HMMMMMM - Interesting idea, might make a project out of making a snorkel to use when needed.

 

[kpiotrowski]

if you still have that hob overflow you got from me you could cut of the inside portion, drill a second hole beside your drain line either higher or lower than the original, attach the overflow over the two drain lines, and now you have a corner overflow with a herbie. just need a gate valve on the full siphon drain.




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the smaller of the two pvc pipes is my full siphon and the larger is the emergency/ trickle tube part of the herbie.