bricky, I get disconnected like after 10 seconds when I connect from nodejs. Do you have the same problem?
I wasn't getting disconnected, but the socket went silent (after maybe a minute?) if I didn't reply to pings - maybe that's what's happening to you? The implementation is actually very straightforward - take a look at the application-*.js file on the bitfinex site to see how they do it.
(never did a websocket client myself in node, so I can't help you on that front I'm afraid)
Also how did you discover the channels that are available (like depth) ?
By looking through the client on the website (it uses the websocket for tickers and order tracking for example), some googling, and plain guesswork
