Shrimp guard for Superfish HOB skimmer

[TrevC]

Hi - am posting this solution in case anyone else had the same problem. On my Superfish nano tank - which I use just for Cherry shrimps - I run the Superfish HOB 50 using the skimmer configuration. Shrimp-proofing the two grills on the main intake was not a problem but a (relatively) elegant solution evaded me for the skimmer. Putting a guard on adds weight and lowers the skimmer so it needs to be light. After several poor attempts using foam, I found a netting solution as per the picture. The netting was Insect Netting Fine Woven Mesh - 1.6mm by the METRE which cost me about £6 with enough to do 50 tanks! The mesh is 1.6mm square and is secured with a plastic cable tie. Seems to work fine still after several weeks. One tip - ensure that the netting is proud of the skimmer top - if you stretch it tightly flat over the skimmer top the netting secures a water film which hinders skimmer action.

Hope this helps
Trevor

 

[MichaelJ]

Good advice. I used to run a dedicated skimmer in my shrimp tank back in the day. I used lemon wraps around the in-take to prevent the shrimps getting caught. The surface skimmer was there mainly to reduce surface film and help a bit with surface agitation. I removed the skimmer long time ago as I just have too much frogbit and duckweed - the surface skimmer just got clogged up all the time 🙂

With my Tidal 35 HOBs - with a build-in surface skimmer that’s doing absolutely nothing as far as I can tell but still is a possible shrimp trap - I added a piece of very coarse sponge on the inlet. Which also turns out to make the need for filter maintenance less frequent.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Aqua360]

Superfish dropped the ball with these filters, feel like they'd be a lot more popular if shrimp safe straight out of the box.