When Calen Harmon of Gnome Glass told us he had sourced some high quality wooden airstones in a dizzying array of sizes at an affordable price, we were thrilled. When he told us they were handmade in the US we told him to shut the front door. We love wooden airstones in air driven protein skimmers like the Mame, the DIY Mame, and the glass Gnome skimmer, but we know of very few reefers that are yet using air driven skimmers with abandon like ourselves. Who cares because not only are these wooden airstones cheaper, they also have some extra engineering that helps these hand-made limewood blocks outperform their mass produced counterparts.
Instead of just boring a hole the same diameter as the airline tubing, some sizes of the the handmade American wooden airstones are actually bored out with a wider diameter on the bottom and plugged up. The larger diameter bore feeds more air to the wood, allowing the wooden stones to be more bubbly for longer.
We are thrilled to see a resurgence of air driven skimmers on the horizon like the CPR Aeroforce AP, ATB Nano internal, and the Precision Marine Hot1v2. The availability of higher quality wooden limewood airstones can do nothing but help the air driven protein skimmer cause. Now if we could just find some perfect high pressure air pumps in addition to the venerable Tetra Luft pump, we’d be in business for a full-on renaissance of air driven skimmers. [via eBay]
