any one haveing problems with oily film on surface?

[sharp tooth]

well the other day i decided to try my fish with some oily fish to see if the rays liked it.
as soon as the chopped fish hit the water i saw the oil spread across the surface.
my tank has no over flows as i use a sump above the tank, so no surface skimmer to remove such an oily film.

so i found these
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150360304037&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

for the price i though ide give it ago.

now i could ither fix it inplace and use it on my sump pump but that would mean while doing waterchanges i would have to turn off the pump as it would run dry as the water level fell.
instead im useing it on end of my pipe i use for water changes.

best of all it actually works really well and dose exsactly what i wanted it to do.

ill upload the short video i did to try it out. it needs better support to keep it level but even just chucking it in to try it worked well.

 

[SuperDave]

This is what I use, A small Eheim Skimmer, I've modified mine a little little with hard plumbing, but it gets the job done on my 570g you can see it on the upper left.

I have it hooked up to a eheim 2028, but you could use a smaller canister.

Here is a standard pic of the Skimmer.

 

[sharp tooth]

yer ive seen them but again ide have to mess about turning off the filters to do a waterchange. the way things run on my tank at the moment i just drop 50 to 60% of the water out and refill. also with this im actually removing it from the tank not filtering it from the water.
here is the video i did when it arrived this morning. just have to lower the unit by pressing a button on the side as the water level drops but it can drop a good 5" before it needs dropping.

it cost me £12 for this, the ehime ones ive also seen on ebay for around £25.

http://s158.photobucket.com/albums/t115/jenky666/?action=view&current=19082009010.flv

just thought it would be a cheap practical way for ppl to get rid of that oily crap off the top who were having problems.

 

[SuperDave]

Thats cool, I just push a button too on my filter to put it in standby during water changes.


Nice 1, looks like a good deal, best bang for your buck!

 

[tcarswell]

I have an HOB on every tank and it seems to break up the surface crud well. On one tank with only canisters (two eheim 2217) I have one of the canisters using an eheim surface extractor. It works great.

 

[mr.reef24]

just get a attachment for your filtration to skim the water.

mr.reef24

 

[KaiserSousay]

Quite by accident, I found my Hydor Nanno will create a vortex when placed close to the water`s surface.
I was just looking for a flow pattern around a rock pile, and "Whoop, there it is".
Actually works quite well, keeping any surface gunk in check.

 

[Jgray152]

That ebay skimmer is actually pretty darn big for a tank. I have used them on the Intex Pools. the mounting is to long for a tank as well. You would have to rig something up. You would need large tubing with many reducers to get it down to the size tubing you need.

It would not look pretty.