Sponge for Red Sea Skimmer intake?

[ScottF]

I have a Red Sea Reefer DC Skimmer 900 that has a bad habit of sucking stuff into the intake. Some times some chaeto breaks loose and makes its way to the skimmer chamber of my sump or a sump crab and gets sucked into the intake. Then I need to tear apart the skimmer to clean the pump.

Does anyone make a sponge or something that specifically fits a Red Sea Reefer DC Skimmer 900 to keep it from sucking stuff into the pump?

 

[exnisstech]

I used to cover mine with a piece of nylon mesh like they use on lids. I'm not a fan of sponge because they are to restrictive and get dirty quickly making them even more so.

 

[ScottF]

I used to cover mine with a piece of nylon mesh like they use on lids. I'm not a fan of sponge because they are to restrictive and get dirty quickly making them even more so.

Not a bad idea. I have plenty of 1/4 mesh. I just figured a sponge would give a bigger overall surface area for crap to stick to before clogging it.

 

[exnisstech]

I think a sponge would cause issues with the skimmer performance as it gets dirty it would be like closing the valve a little at a time.

 

[winxp_man]

I just don’t keep anything living creature in my sump. And my chaeto chamber is after the skimmer chamber. So nothing makes it into the skimmer that is not supposed to be there.

 

[ScottF]

I ended up using some of the plastic straps that hold bags of Tropic Marin Pro closed to attach an extra large media bag to the output of my fuge.

I have a Red Sea sump with the sump extension as my fuge. The water comes back from the fuge through a pvc pipe. I just put the media bag over that pipe to catch anything coming from the fuge.

If it fills up and clogs the pipe, the water will just flow over the interior sump wall into the skimmer chamber in the main sump.