Cali Kid Corals

Covering intake for skimmer

Flagg37

Flagg37

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My sea slug has gotten stuck to the intake pipe of my skimmer so I zip tied some netting material around the opening. Now the netting gets clogged with all the scum that should be getting into the skimmer. Do I just need to get netting that has larger holes or is there some other solution to my problem?
 
Yeah you could make a small box using egg-crate (aka light diffuser) with some superglue or ziptie and attach it to the intake.

Each square is about 1 inch big.

When you say sea-slug you mean a sea-hair? A sea hare would not be able to get in but something smaller might. A sea lettuce nudibranch might be able to make it past and get chopped up.

Here's a poorly done eggcrate cube, I've seen better made ones.

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I actually have some black egg crate you or anyone can have for free if interested. I'm in san mateo though. You can buy black eggcrate at most local fish stores and also at Tap Plastics. It's around 5 to 10$
 
Those holes are way too big. Here's my sea slug (Elysia spp.)image.jpeg

And here's what I did. image.jpeg

The holes on the end of the skimmer intake are already very small (maybe 1mmx4mm slits). That's why originally I didn't cover it. But she's gotten caught in it three times now. This last time I thought she was dead.

Thanks for the ideas though. I think I may just have to go with a betting that has larger holes.
 
Very interesting. Yeah I think in your other thread you said it was a Lettuce Sea Slug.

Just so you know, the Lettuce Sea Slug is not a very commonly kept clean up crew. Most reefers don't keep Lettuce Nudibranchs. Some of us keep sea hares because they are supposedly very efficient against pest algaes.

They do have larger plastic mesh you can put around the intake. Plastic should be okay. Avoid metal mesh since it'll rust.
 
I think part of the problem is the intake tube just has a lot of auction around it. If you built a larger diameter intake screen and slid it over top of the intake (even having mesh around the part of the skimmer intake tube with no holes) it'll diffuse the suction and prevent anything from getting stuck to it. Ie with a much larger intake even if the slug covers part of it there will be plenty of open area for water to get sucked into the skimmer and there won't be a lot of suction on the covered part. You're really going for diffusion here.

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tygunn said:
I think part of the problem is the intake tube just has a lot of auction around it. If you built a larger diameter intake screen and slid it over top of the intake (even having mesh around the part of the skimmer intake tube with no holes) it'll diffuse the suction and prevent anything from getting stuck to it. Ie with a much larger intake even if the slug covers part of it there will be plenty of open area for water to get sucked into the skimmer and there won't be a lot of suction on the covered part. You're really going for diffusion here.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

That's pretty much exactly what I did but with a different method. I drilled a whole bunch of 1/8" holes further up the stem of the pipe. image.jpeg
 
Those guys are notorious for committing suicide in reef tanks by wandering into powerheads and intakes. I suspect he will find another way to die soon enough.

They supposedly eat bryopsis, but I found that they don't eat enough of any algae fast enough to be worth the trouble of trying to keep them alive.
 
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