DIY HoB Skimmer for 20g

[isufishtank]

Hello everyone! I've recently set up my first saltwater tank and am already hoping on the​

refugium train! Prior to this new addition all I had for filtration was a standard AquaClear 50 with Purigen for organics. While this worked well, I wanted to make water changes less frequent because I am in college and hopefully make the tank more stable. In order to achieve this I purchased an AquaClear 30 and an ACKE LED grow light that had great reviews and was on sale for nearly 40% off! These two items are all I needed to make my refugium and all together costed me under $50!

After everything I came in I modified the filter by cutting one of the intake tubes much shorter​

and attached it to the U-Bend intake piece. I then secured the piece with two zip-ties from the light. This was all done in order to draw water from the neighboring AquaClear 50 rather than from the tank itself; That's one less intake hanging down into the display! Next I aligned the light and hinged it using the last two provided zip-ties. Pardon the use of a milk carton as the lid on the AquaClear 50, I don't have a Dremel to cut the lid to fit the intake for the refugium.

Unfortunately I don't have any chaetomorpha to throw into it yet as I am waiting to get some from​

someone local to ensure it is healthy and has plenty of other life in it. Currently I'm using it for chemical filtration with carbon. Check out the pictures to see the final result! I have plans to cut the lid into shape for the AquaClear 50 as well as find a more attractive securing method than zip-ties
I'll continue to post updates on how well it performs once I finally get some chaeto

 

[Hermie]

Nice work, only thing I'd be worried about is down the road, the flow rate for the first filter might decrease to a point where the second filter sucks out all the water. I say that because over time, flow rates definitely decrease as things accumulate inside the tubes and other inefficiencies show themselves etc. If that ever becomes a problem you could probably pretty easily improvise (using the u tube as a siphon instead of w/ a motor and increasing the height of the first filter.

 

[isufishtank]

Nice work, only thing I'd be worried about is down the road, the flow rate for the first filter might decrease to a point where the second filter sucks out all the water. I say that because over time, flow rates definitely decrease as things accumulate inside the tubes and other inefficiencies show themselves etc. If that ever becomes a problem you could probably pretty easily improvise (using the u tube as a siphon instead of w/ a motor and increasing the height of the first filter.

I have found a solution to this! I discovered an old UV Sterilizer that had been used on my brothers freshwater tank that has it's own pump. I'm going to add that to the tank and modify it to outlet straight into the fuge along with the other filter. A little redundancy never hurts!