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Which protein skimmer do you have, and do you recommend it?

i have had the eshopps skimmer

looked very nice and pretty lol
but , when it came down to it , my coral life super skimmer outperformed it collecting stuff ten times over i sod it a week later
 
I have an octopus bh-100F and a Coralife needle wheel super skimmer. The octopus skimmer is on a 46 bow front and it works wonders. It pulls dark brown gunk out of the tank like crazy. The bubbles are incredibly small and some of them invariably end up in the tank. It works well enough, but I think it would be better if I user it in a sump.

The coral life super skimmer (up to 125 gallons) was setup today. I have it in a 30 gallon sump on a 55 gallon tank. It is a well built skimmer and I have high hopes for it. One thing I have noticed is that the bubbles are generally larger than the octopus skimmer's bubbles. This will probably make it slightly less efficient than the octopus, but it has the upside of not pumping microbubbles back into the water. The dial on it is incredibly sensitive and I think it will probably overflow some day. Overall, it is a solid skimmer and I recommend it. I got it for $125 on sale at drfostersmith.

Both of these skimmers are very good and will knock the crappy seaclones sold at chain stores out of the water.

edit: the super skimmer was not a pain to put together as the above poster claims. There are many parts, but if you have ever used a skimmer or can follow simple diagrams in a multipaged instruction manual, you will be fine.

The octopus skimmer was much harder as there was only a diagram on the one page of instructions.
 
Help: Protien Skimmer

Hello Guys and Gals if any.. :welcome:

I need your Help. I'm new to this forum. I haven't any protein skimmer. I want to buy the new one. What brand should I buy? any suggestion? :goodbye:
 
robyn;86662 said:
I have two Red Sea Berlin skimmers on a 280 gallon recirculating system (housing between 4 and 12 Nautilus pompilius). One is excellent, the other one sucks. The good one occasionally gets blocked with salt buildup at the base of the air-intake tube, but otherwise skims brilliantly. The bad one has been cleaned, rebuilt, resealed, everything, and still barely maintains a vortex. But its probably better than nothing.

Do you know why the one sucks? Is it a lemon? I'm particularly interested because on my list of skimmers to consider purchasing is a Red Sea Berlin XL.
 
I have one of the Red Sea Berlin models and I will never, ever, ever buy another Red Sea Skimmer. It has never skimmed well, no matter how we adjusted it. This weekend, after 4+ years of never really doing much of anything except cause a mess and putting water on the floor, we finally just turned it off.
 
CaptFish;145837 said:
AHHH SPAMMER!!!
fighting0016.gif

Thanks for pointing this one out... just as a note, you can use the "report post button (the little warning sign icon on the left of the post) to report spammers to the staff without bringing the thread off-topic.

now, back to skimmers...
 
I have had several different skimmers over the last several years, always searching for the best. I measured best by the amount of money and was very disappointed. I started out with an Octopus recirculating skimmer and never really got it to perform. I then switched to a Tunze 9015 and it was easy enought to dial in, but required too much maintenance in my mind and also was a pain to put back together (also most expensive). I have settled in on an ASM G2 and have to say it is the epitome of plug-n-play. It does the right job for the price and my only complaint would be that the connection from the pump to the main skimmer housing comes loose over time and provides you with a lot of micro-bubbles. I would by one again, but think my next is going to be a bubble king or cone skimmer. That is a ways off.

One that I would absolutely recommend you stay away from is the Prizm....complete dog in my experience.
 
I have 2 HOB skimmers. The first one is a Remora. It came with a tank set up I purchased and I have to say I love it. I NEVER have a problem with it EVER. I think maybe they fixed what ever the problem was other people mentioned reguarding the o-ring cause this ones been set up for over 2 years and no problems. It had a Rio pump on it which was CRAP but I put a much larger pump on it and the skimmate is AMAZING! I pull out maybe a half a cup of VERY dark stinky skimmate every few days maybe a week.

The other HOB is a CPR (pak 2 I think) I have it on my 15 gal nano reef. It only has 1 fish. Its ok I guess. The skimmate is kinda clear. Its never pulled dark sludge. But when I only had a 5 gal refugium I had a very bad hair algae problem. So i took off the 5 gal refugium and used the skimmer. Works fine for a small tank. I took out all of the bio media and turned it into a refugium/protein skimmer. I no longer have even a hint of hair algae.
 
My pre-owned Pro Clear 150 has been running for a week now and I haven't heard anything bad about it (despite hours and hours of research), and I have nothing bad at all to say about it. It took a day or two for it to break in, but once it kicked into high gear it started roaring! This is my first skimmer, but it is an obviously a very advantageous design, easy to tune and a breeze to maintain. I recommend this skimmer 100%. I cruised ebay for a month or two and got it for a steal. If I ever find a flaw, I will be sure to revise this testimony. Until then, I would say the (more than twice what I paid) brand new value of $149 is still worth every penny of skimmer power you will get.
 
I got an Eshopps Gen II Skimmer 75gal. this skimmer is awesome! its a lower priced one. i think i paid $120. the new models have better water level adjustment and a larger needle wheel pump. I use it in my sump and even if i remove my bubble sponge i get ZERO micro bubbles in my main display. I tried to break it in with a vinegar bath, but i still took a week to really start producing some gnarly skimmate. i am very happy with this purchase
 
I use an aqua C remora. Alot of people really love these, but mine does not pick up much skimmate. I do not have a ceph in my tank yet, but I used to have triggers that were super messy and it got barely any skimmate.
 
I have a Euro Reef (I believe CS8-5) with a 5000 gph pump on my 46 gallon bowfront. This skimmer is the main reason I believe I have had such good luck getting into the hobby...(this tank is my first fish tank and I got it in March)
 

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