Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

I would like an honest opinion about skimmers.

My own experience: I owned a seaclone skimmer in which I thought worked decent for a 55 gal. It wasn't until I added a Kent Nautilus that I realized what I was missing. After this, I moved to a 190g setup. The nautilous still worked great, but I wanted more so I upgraded to a MR2. The MR2 was noisy but worked fantastic. After about a year, I purchased a ETSS 800 (clone). This skimmer produced the same amount of sklimmate as the MR2 (but darker) and used about 1/2 the pump power. It was also much much quieter. I also noticed the bubbles were much much smaller in the reaction chamber. I now have a couple of new ETSS models but have yet to try them out. I would like to know your experiences with skimmers.

Thanks for the opinions,
Jeremy

My opinion, not needed

I like My Euro Reef 8-2. It is quiet, produces ok (I am doing the gate valve mod soon) and is energy efficient. I really can't wait to get a tank big enough to try out my DIY Becket style monster, just not looking forward to the power bill associated with it.

If I needed a new skimmer and money wasn't a big issue I would look at the type of skimmer that Redfish has. Some or all of the water that is going to the sump goes into the skimmer and there is a efficient recirculating pump that injects the air. They are supposedly pretty dang good.

HTH,
Scott

I think if you have the money to throw down, get a recurculating needlewheel skimmer. I think if you look at performance versus capital cost versus power costs, they are the best.

If you cannot throw down, buy an ASM. I think they are the absolute best bang for the buck on the market.

I have absolutely nothing against beckett skimmers performance. I do have something against their long term operation costs and the tuning factor. I have never owned a big beckett, so your mileage may vary. Andy at MRC had me about ten seconds away from buying a recirculating beckett on two occasions. I eventually settled on the Deltec.

In deference to Snoop's comment, I must admit I ran saltwater tanks for years with no skimmer. They were not "reef" tanks and they were no where near nutrient poor. My second tank was a 60 gallon tall hex with a single piece of bleached coral in the middle at about one third the tank height. Filtration was via an undergravel (YES GRAVEL) filter. I kept a 5-6" yellow tank, an 8-9" blue face angel and a 6-7" green bird wrasse in that tank for over three years from 1985 to 1989. Fortunately for me, the Japanese owner of the fish store, whom I could hardly understand, explained to me that I should change one third of the water each month, vacuum the gravel once every two weeks and use a miracle filter product (his choice of words) (carbon) in a bag for one day each week hanging in the tank. Did not ever know what the temperature of the tank was.