DIY Protein Skimmer

River Lotus · Jul 4, 2020

I would like to know who has made protein skimmers at home.

Peace River · Jul 4, 2020

Welcome to R2R!!! I've done a lot of DIY projects but not a skimmer.

andrewey · Jul 4, 2020

Welcome to Reef2Reef. I made the classic PVC pipe and 5 gallon bucket skimmer once. Ugly as sin, but functional :)

KJ · Jul 4, 2020

Welcome to R2R!!!

Bryn · Jul 4, 2020

Welcome to R2R. Might also want to try the DIY forum, and maybe also look at wooden air stones.

Ippyroy · Jul 4, 2020

Welcome to R2R! Haven't done much DIY in reefing.

fishguy242 · Jul 4, 2020

hi welcome to the reef going to love it here!!
lots of fun/info/fun/help/fun....

Jimbhoy13 · Jul 4, 2020

River Lotus said:
I would like to know who has made protein skimmers at home.

Welcome to R2R

Smarkow · Jul 4, 2020

Welcome to R2R!!!

Smarkow · Jul 4, 2020

I think @AlexG has a DIY one in his build thread

SCReef'n · Jul 4, 2020

Welcome to R2R!!!!! Good luck

Ulm_nano_diybudgetreef · Jul 4, 2020

andrewey said:
Welcome to Reef2Reef. I made the classic PVC pipe and 5 gallon bucket skimmer once. Ugly as sin, but functional :)

Got any pictures or how to's andrewey?

AcroNem · Jul 4, 2020

Welcome! Have not made my own skimmer unfortunately, back in the day they were made with some pretty simple parts

andrewey · Jul 4, 2020

Ulm_nano_diybudgetreef said:
Got any pictures or how to's andrewey?

I'll see if I can't dig up some pictures- they're probably on an external hard drive somewhere. This was about 10 years ago. The riser was a 6" PVC pipe and I ran it with a spare sedra 5000 from an asm g4. In terms of design, imagine a deltec skimmer, now remove any sort of engineering or finesse and make the entire skimmer opaque. Make sure to stain the outside of your connectors with purple pvc primer and use too much silicone- at that point you'll be pretty close to imaging what it looks like until I can dig up some pictures.