Leaky Euroreef Skimmer

[eagleONE]

Awhile back I cracked my skimmer pretty badly and I fixed it with weldon 16. Well, turned out it didn't quite work... started to leak. I tried silicon, but it's not holding up to acrylic very well. Can anyone suggest a strong sealant or any options. I'm getting frustrated and really want this to work.... Anybody have any suggestions? I'm all ears.

Thanks
Feel like giving up reef- Jay

[itZme]

Maybe try some Weld-on #4 (the water thin type). It will wick into the crack and hopefully seal it up. Or you could take a Dremel with a cutoff disk and grind along the crack then reseal with Weld-on #40 (very thick stuff like thick syrup)

Or just send it to me and buy a new skimmer :D

Good Luck!

PS. If you don't care about looks you could try scraping out all the silicone and sanding/filing the crack then use Aquamend Putty to seal the crack. You can find the Aquamend in the plumbing section at HD. It is white when it dries though so it will be ugly.

[flyyyguy]

I personally like itsme's idea of weldon #4 in the crack and THEN some #40. Should seal it up no problem.

you need to get all of that silicone off of there first

[lvpd186]

You could also take a small piece of acrylic, form it to the right curve to match the area of the skimmer, and then attach it over the crack using weldon #4. It won't be pretty, but it should work.

[lvpd186]

Oops double post. I meant to edit my post by saying you should still try and fill in the crack with #4 as long as you can get it to line up right and stay together while it cures (maybe use some strong tape for this). And the patch idea will still need a somewhat flat surface so if you have big ridges of dried #16 you might have to sand them down or something. Hope that helps!

[eagleONE]

Thanks.

I think I have a bigger problem now. Last night I rash decided to ripe it apart and build a new one. It's a point of no repair. Now I just called TAP plastics to get an acrylic tube but they only have an 1/8 in thickness.

Is that too thin? Isn't ER skimmers 3/8 in thickness?

[rafael13]

how bad is it?
if you want we can try to glue it again

[eagleONE]

I ripped the outlet pipe out... along with that were the parts that were cracked. It just a giant hole now...

[eagleONE]

Does anyone know the thickness of the skimmer body?

can I just order a 1/8 size?

[cougarguy]

Cant you just measure the one you removed?

I personally use 1/8" up to 6" diameter tubing any thing over 6" I go with 1/4. I also use cast acrylic it seems to glue a little better for me.

[Ewan]

Just measure it. I highly doubt it's 3/8.

[rustybucket145]

you should have plenty of pieces to measure :D

Seriously though, it's probably 1/4". Have you priced acrylic tubing lately? You might not have just destroyed that piece if you had.....

[flyyyguy]

I would have to still question if its really destroyed.....

Just because it is in multiple pieces...doesnt mean we cant still fix it

[eagleONE]

Heres the thing, a while back I dropped my skimmer. It crack all the way around the body at the base sparing a one or two inches from one end of the crack to the other.

I used weldon to seal it up but heavy damage was the the exit hole for the outlet pipe. I tried to weldon it...as well as silicon it.

It was just leaky from the very beginning... I just got fed up last night and made probably a bad decision.

The thing is...I was planning to mod the skimmer to be external. Everything worked fine til I dropped it. So... looking at it... the base and body pretty much spider'd all over (along with the cracks) and I fear if I were to run this external I may run in with a possible disaster in the future... so that's where I'm at.

[Ewan]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11044969#post11044969 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by eagleONE

The thing is...I was planning to mod the skimmer to be external. Everything worked fine til I dropped it. So... looking at it... the base and body pretty much spider'd all over (along with the cracks) and I fear if I were to run this external I may run in with a possible disaster in the future... so that's where I'm at.

...skimmer shopping. :D

I hear DAS are a great value for the money. Probably cheaper than the 3/8" acrylic you were looking for. :P