What's the new latest and greatest skimmer nowadays?

Im selling the Skimz Monzter DC 203 internal skimmer as part of my liquidation. very tunable (both pump speed and air intake). Extremely solid construction.

 

Huh. Never actually considered cleaning the AquaC all inside and the air injector. Thank you for the tip. My air adjuster is a super fine adjustment between doing nothing and volcanoing. So I generally leave it too low just to be sure.

 

Yeah good tip, periodically clean out the venturi tube, it does get salt creep (hard white crap). I had a drill bit that was the exact size and every month I would send it through. some pumps it happens more quickly than others

 

The white stuff in the air intake is insane! I tried soaking it in water, thinking it was salt. Then I soaked it vinegar thinking it was calcium build up. In the end, I picked it out with a steel BBQ skewer! The water injector was clogged with crap. It's basically a plastic tube that is pinched into a three-leaf-clover, and it had hard stuff on it. This skimmer was new when I started wifebane (I have two of the same skimmers).

It is now skimming a very VERY green wet skimmate. I may stick with it, seeing as it's paid for. But we'll see. I'm still not sure how much crap it SHOULD be skimming out.
It IS skimming something, but who can say if it's doing it efficiently or not. The fact that the skimmate is green is encouraging I guess.

 

I'll look at the Skimz, if it is more energy efficient. The AquaC's Mag5 is EXTREMELY reliable, but also uses 49W/hour and I run my skimmer 24/7.

So that amounts to 1.176 kW per day or around 20-30 cents/day. But of course, it takes years to make back the cost of a new skimmer!

 

Weekly skimmer output. Have to clean it weekly otherwise it'll continue to collect and stink up the office (even w/a carbon pad on top).

 

Is that an Aquamaxx Eric?

What are you feeding that tank?!

When I clean out my skimmer (usually bi-weekly) my wife screams at me from upstairs because of the smell of me pouring it out, I am thinking of getting one of those auto-cleaners though because some part of me thinks as the next gets all gunky nasty the skimmer effectiveness decreases (the real issue is how much), but clean skimmer cup peak efficiency then sometime throughout the week it gets less and less and less, how much less is it every 2 weeks is the question.

 

Yeah you'd be hard pressed to pay off a skimmer based on power changes, DC pumps are more efficient but a skimmer pump usually isn't going to use so much power that it costs very much as it is. Well unless you have one of those monster skimmers that uses a Reeflo pump or some other pump that measures output in HP instead of watts

 

It's the Vertex Omega 150. I feed a ton (4-5 cube daily) and it does a good job at keeping my nutrients low with my 5% weekly water changes (dropped the % on water changes as to keep some nitrates in the system).

 

Yeah heard/seen good things from the Vertex skimmers (Alpha and Omega... gee some company is creative!), as much as I want one, I don't think I can justify the cost of one for my tank, which throws it into the $1300 range for the Alpha250 which would be roughly what is rated for my tank (if you go by their ratings)

 

My skimmate never smells. Weird that way.
But I skim a lot wetter than the pictures above.

My reef octopus is ok. Although a bit noisy.

I have heard good things about recirculating skimmers, but never tried one.

Tip: Be careful when over-sizing that you don't get a skimmer with a throat that is too wide in diameter.
It won't work so well if not matched to bio load.

 

I'd echo what everyone else has said skimmer technology not changing much - so the real value adds are pump quality (reliability/tunability/efficiency), noise levels, and ease of maintenance/cleaning.

I had the Reef Octopus 150-SSS @Vhuang168 mentioned (did you buy my old one?) and was very happy with it's skimming - it pulled a ton of sludge out. However, it was very loud and didn't come with a silencer. I DIYed one and eventually bought the factory silencer which made a huge difference. I ran it on a heavily stocked 90 gal display in a 30gal sump.

For our new 40gal display/30gal sump system I chose a smaller Bubble Magus Curve 5, which has been nice for a smaller size. It comes with a built in silencer and is almost completely silent vs. the Reef Octopus 150SSS (even with it's silencer). It doesn't seem to pull quite as much sludge, but does a decent job. Also, it tends to be more sensitive to foaming agents or water level changes, I think due to a smaller size body. It's easy to dial in for given conditions, but likely to overflow if the conditions change much (certain food added, etc).

If you've got the money, the DC pump based skimmers seem like a really nice thing since they are both more efficient and the water volume can be tuned directly.

I've always bought my skimmers new during the sales, but the best bargains are probably a used skimmer and buying a new pump for it.

 

The however problem is due to disgusting MAP policies so many name brands are excluded whenever anyone has a sale. This was the great thing about LFS though, if they're selling at MAP, and you know the guy you very often can get a cash deal of below price (plus no sales tax!), however this only applies if you know the guy at the store AND they have what you want in stock (not too many stores have that wide of a selection of skimmers.

10% off Labor day sales*
(*excludes EVERY major non-Chinese knock off brand of equipment that is actually expensive enough to lure you into a discount)

 

No kidding.

 

Wow, how you get this dark skim?!? What I could get so far was light brown skim or nothing trying to skim dryer...
Skimz 123dc


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

What size is your tank?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

43 Gal - Red Sea Reefer 170

 

That should be fine size wise. I'm assuming you mean the SN123.

I'm not familiar with skimz skimmers tuning wise. I usually adjust so the foam comes up 1/2 to 3/4 up the cup.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

A lot of depends upon how much you feed your tank too, more food (whether fish, coral, etc) and more proteins to pull out.

 

That's some Nog there Eric.