Mesh mod for my red sea prizm skimmer

[reeftanknewbie]

So until I find some time to set up my in sump skimmer, I decided to use my Red Sea Prizm skimmer.  Works fairly well but decided to complete the mesh mod using some mesh material from Joann's fabrics needle point section (cost me .48/sheet).  Then I just traced the impeller of the Red Sea pump onto the mesh plastic sheet, cut it out and attached with two zip ties.  Works very well...noticed a drastic improvement in microbubbles inside of the skimmer chamber. 
,,

tell me what you think.......................

[HENRYSTYLE]

looks good.   test it out....See how good it works..

[coralnut99]

The only thing I can think of is that you may want to try fishing line instead of the zip tie. My Prizm went away a very long time ago, but if I remember right the pump and impeller aren't huge. The zip tie may bog it down a bit. Also, given the pump's size, will it actually fit back in there? Give any thought to using the 3M abrasive pads isntead?

[newlysalted]

Will the zip ties throw the impeller out of balance,causing  wear in the housing?

[Chrishew09]

yeah the zip ties might be a weak point. what about superglue or a plastic epoxy.
think it would work on my coralife65?

[reeftanknewbie]

thanks everyone for the great suggestions.....It's been running now the past two days without any noticeable change in sound, etc..but a noticeable change in skimming. I do like the idea of fishing line so that it can be removed over gluing it and will try this this weekend instead.     

[coralnut99]

It was just the picture that made me think of the fishing line; no scientific brainstorm buy any means. It's an itty-bitty impeller so I was also thinking along the lines of throwing the impeller's balance of in the housing. Conversely, it may actually be adding to the job the mesh-mod does and creating more turbulance and bubbles. Only time will tell.

[reeftanknewbie]

It was just the picture that made me think of the fishing line; no scientific brainstorm buy any means. It's an itty-bitty impeller so I was also thinking along the lines of throwing the impeller's balance of in the housing. Conversely, it may actually be adding to the job the mesh-mod does and creating more turbulance and bubbles. Only time will tell.

true....right now the bubbles seem more intense then before and still no noise...I think I am going to still try the fishing line to see if there is any improvement....if it gets worse I will go back to the zip ties. 

[reeftanknewbie]

so I tried the fishing line yesterday instead of the zip ties on my mesh mod....Seems better as there is more micro bubbles then even before....There is no noise at all and the pump seems to be working as normal vs. being labored at all due to the addition of this mod.  Skimmate is now very dark as opposed to ice tea colored. 

[eastonreef]

how about posting a pic of the skimmer in action...

btw .. angelo is always full of helpful ideas

[coralnut99]

Never tried modding any skimmer in any way. I love to tinker, but it's got to be worth the time invested. Just from a really non-scientific viewpoint it seemed like the zip-tie heads would give the small impeller a problem, either from a performance standpoint, or just staying balanced in the housing.

Actually I did mod ONE skimmer. I just bought a Sicce pump to replace the Sedra 5000 on my first-generation Euro Reef(it had to be about 6 years old). What a beast this pump is. The only problem was that the venturi draws so much air it slurps loud enough to hear on the third floor, from the basement. I had to make a DIY silencer out of the plastic tube that a one-gazillion zip-tie assortment came in. Yeah, I'm finding zip-ties everywhere in the basement now, lol!

[reeftanknewbie]

Never tried modding any skimmer in any way. I love to tinker, but it's got to be worth the time invested. Just from a really non-scientific viewpoint it seemed like the zip-tie heads would give the small impeller a problem, either from a performance standpoint, or just staying balanced in the housing.

Actually I did mod ONE skimmer. I just bought a Sicce pump to replace the Sedra 5000 on my first-generation Euro Reef(it had to be about 6 years old). What a beast this pump is. The only problem was that the venturi draws so much air it slurps loud enough to hear on the third floor, from the basement. I had to make a DIY silencer out of the plastic tube that a one-gazillion zip-tie assortment came in. Yeah, I'm finding zip-ties everywhere in the basement now, lol!

same here...tinkering is a lot of fun......so far the fishing line seems to be working very well, much better then the zip ties were.  some serious foam coming out now.