Seaclone mod that does something?
Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 3:47 am
I've tried quite a few mods for the seaclone so far, with generally no better results that how it used to work. The limewood airstone mod works OK I guess, but creates LOTS of very wet foam, and too many bubbles in the tank. The newer models already have a shortened "cyclone" tube, so that mod is no longer needed. The bioball mod is supposed to be good, but I can't say I've found a bioball that works yet. I recently punched a network of tiny holes in the impeller, and ran dental floss between them making a web to cut up finer bubbles. It does make finer bubbles, but seems to reduce my flow and create air bubbles in the J tube excessively; I may have overdone it, 5 holes per impeller blade with lots of zigzagging floss. A break-even mod, overall. So I was trying to think of something that would help, but not involve altering the mechanisms, be highly hit-or-miss, or be temperamental.
I noticed that the collector cup neck is smaller than the riser tube opening by a good margin, for some reason, and that the riser tube(I mean the inner tube for creating the counter current flow, not the tiny tube for creating the cyclone) has a collar on top that narrows its diameter to fit the collector cup, about 1/8" in radius lost overall just there, more when you see how the collection cup has a "step" making it even narrower. When I did the math, a minimum of 20% of the bubbles(much more I strongly suspect, 20% assumes the same bubble density throughout the riser tube, which, considering the cyclone motion, is unlikely) are hitting surface outside of the riser cup neck. First, I used a dremmel to grind the lip off the inner riser tube. Then, I took a 20oz Dr. Pepper bottle(has a nice conical top leading up the the screw on cap), cut the neck of the bottle below the threads just far enough down to make a TIGHT fit over the little step of the collector neck, then cut the other side of the bottle just far enough down to make a tight fit into the now non-restricted inner tube. Normally after tinkering with my skimmer it takes a day or so to get any skimmate again, but I'm already getting some foam from this. Maybe this one is actually going to improve this thing. I truely hope I can afford a better skimmer before coming up with another one.
I noticed that the collector cup neck is smaller than the riser tube opening by a good margin, for some reason, and that the riser tube(I mean the inner tube for creating the counter current flow, not the tiny tube for creating the cyclone) has a collar on top that narrows its diameter to fit the collector cup, about 1/8" in radius lost overall just there, more when you see how the collection cup has a "step" making it even narrower. When I did the math, a minimum of 20% of the bubbles(much more I strongly suspect, 20% assumes the same bubble density throughout the riser tube, which, considering the cyclone motion, is unlikely) are hitting surface outside of the riser cup neck. First, I used a dremmel to grind the lip off the inner riser tube. Then, I took a 20oz Dr. Pepper bottle(has a nice conical top leading up the the screw on cap), cut the neck of the bottle below the threads just far enough down to make a TIGHT fit over the little step of the collector neck, then cut the other side of the bottle just far enough down to make a tight fit into the now non-restricted inner tube. Normally after tinkering with my skimmer it takes a day or so to get any skimmate again, but I'm already getting some foam from this. Maybe this one is actually going to improve this thing. I truely hope I can afford a better skimmer before coming up with another one.
