Yeah seriously, I'm not sure why I go through so much so fast. Personally, I think I have a high baseline cellular metabolism. Also, I fidget a lot and I can eat lots of food and won't gain much weight. But anyway...
I run it essentially like you and the OP--just not as pretty. I just made the soda lime chamber out of those half-gallon containers at Walmart and drilled a bunch of holes in the bottom. I covered the bottom with the black sponge stuff and poured the soda lime on top. The skimmer pulls air from the top.
Here are some pics:
My skimmer is a reef octopus xp-2000 cone and it is a straight BEAST so I don't know if that is contributing to the fast consumption rate.