Avaist swabbie

Have one and like it. I use a Reed Octopus tho, not a cone. Ask Avast about your particular skimmer.

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I have one. Love it. probably wouldnt be too hard to diy if you wanted. Should work on a cone, the neck should be straight. only cleans the neck, not the body also.
I had one on my sro5000. It was made by reef octopusffor the skimmer.
 
I also picked up their skimmer collection container. Has a switch on it that'll shut down your skimmer once it is full. Very happy with it .
 
I may just have to order one too. I've been looking for one for years just never pulled the trigger.
 
Ive been thinking about one as well. Slief on here pointed me to the helix 250. but at 500 I'm out. manual cleaning is just fine. He said the avast seem to be ok for a year but the motors burn out fast.
I don't know the truth to all that. never had one.
 
frogspawn74 said:
Ive been thinking about one as well. Slief on here pointed me to the helix 250. but at 500 I'm out. manual cleaning is just fine. He said the avast seem to be ok for a year but the motors burn out fast.
I don't know the truth to all that. never had one.
Click to expand...

I used mine over a year and no problems. Like I said it's just something else that needs to get cleaned IMO
 
But DSmack isn't the point of the swabbie so you don't have to clean the neck of your protein skimmer out weekly? without the swabbie you would have to clean the neck of the skimmer weekly to keep it skimming good. And from what a lot of the videos I have seen they only clean their skimmer every 6 months while using it. So from what I have seen even if I clean it every 3 months that is 13 less times every 3 months I would have to clean it. I also heard running them on a apex or RK is a good idea. have them set up to run 2 or 3 times a day for 30 mins each time is what they suggest. And that should help make the motor last longer. You really don't need to run the thing all the time. You should be able to even just put it on a crappy lights timer I know we all have and make it last longer. but that is what I have seen from the videos online from people like melvesreef and the such. Here is a link on his use of the swabbie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwOuOU1O1Bw
 
Mr D smack said:
I've got one and don't use it. It's just one more thing that needs to be cleaned if you use it
Click to expand...
Point taken. I should elaborate on my answer.
If I ran an internal skimmer, I probably wouldn't want or own one. It would indeed be a PITA to have to pull the wiper assembly out every time the collection cup needed emptying. That being said, I run an external skimmer, and on the dry side. I have the "swabbie" as it's called set to clean the neck for 2 minutes every 6 hours. I think it may make to or three revolutions in that time.
The skimmate ends up in the collection container. If I had to guess, it probably holds a little over a gallon of the raunchy stuff before the float switch will trip and shut down the skimmer. And the collection container has a carbon filter built into it, so all the air from the skimmer passes through the carbon to hold down the smell.
In all honesty, I probably haven't cleaned my skimmer since early December. And I won't until the collection container is full- probably another couple of weeks. When I do, there will be MUD inside the collection cup. And mud on the wiper assembly. But the skimmer neck itself will look pretty much like it did immediately after its last trip to the sink. With an external skimmer, adding a neck cleaner is something you can do to your system to truly encourage laziness..
True, it is one more thing to clean. But, as long as I have a tank up and I am running an external skimmer, I'll take cleaning the collection cup and wiper assembly once every couple of months over cleaning the collection cup alone once or twice a week. :)
 
Last edited:
zephryn100 said:
But DSmack isn't the point of the swabbie so you don't have to clean the neck of your protein skimmer out weekly? without the swabbie you would have to clean the neck of the skimmer weekly to keep it skimming good. And from what a lot of the videos I have seen they only clean their skimmer every 6 months while using it. So from what I have seen even if I clean it every 3 months that is 13 less times every 3 months I would have to clean it. I also heard running them on a apex or RK is a good idea. have them set up to run 2 or 3 times a day for 30 mins each time is what they suggest. And that should help make the motor last longer. You really don't need to run the thing all the time. You should be able to even just put it on a crappy lights timer I know we all have and make it last longer. but that is what I have seen from the videos online from people like melvesreef and the such. Here is a link on his use of the swabbie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwOuOU1O1Bw
Click to expand...

Just think about what you said. What doesn't stick to the neck of your skimmer sticks to the neck cleaner. I clean my skimmer cup every other week just cause. Why would I want to add to my cleaning chores? And for those who haven't used a neck cleaner, if you don't clean if frequently so to say the skimmate will clump and find its way to the bottom of your skimmer. I ran my neck cleaner on a timer 4 times a day for 2 mins. There is no reason to run a neck cleaner for 30 mins. It's cleaning the neck and nothing else which doesn't require a lot of time
 
zephryn100 said:
But DSmack isn't the point of the swabbie so you don't have to clean the neck of your protein skimmer out weekly? without the swabbie you would have to clean the neck of the skimmer weekly to keep it skimming good. And from what a lot of the videos I have seen they only clean their skimmer every 6 months while using it. So from what I have seen even if I clean it every 3 months that is 13 less times every 3 months I would have to clean it. I also heard running them on a apex or RK is a good idea. have them set up to run 2 or 3 times a day for 30 mins each time is what they suggest. And that should help make the motor last longer. You really don't need to run the thing all the time. You should be able to even just put it on a crappy lights timer I know we all have and make it last longer. but that is what I have seen from the videos online from people like melvesreef and the such. Here is a link on his use of the swabbie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwOuOU1O1Bw
Click to expand...

you don't run them all the time because it would keep the skimmer from working.
 
Tigé21v said:
Point taken. I should elaborate on my answer.
If I ran an internal skimmer, I probably wouldn't want or own one. It would indeed be a PITA to have to pull the wiper assembly out every time the collection cup needed emptying. That being said, I run an external skimmer, and on the dry side. I have the "swabbie" as it's called set to clean the neck for 2 minutes every 6 hours. I think it may make to or three revolutions in that time.
The skimmate ends up in the collection container. If I had to guess, it probably holds a little over a gallon of the raunchy stuff before the float switch will trip and shut down the skimmer. And the collection container has a carbon filter built into it, so all the air from the skimmer passes through the carbon to hold down the smell.
In all honesty, I probably haven't cleaned my skimmer since early December. And I won't until the collection container is full- probably another couple of weeks. When I do, there will be MUD inside the collection cup. And mud on the wiper assembly. But the skimmer neck itself will look pretty much like it did immediately after its last trip to the sink. With an external skimmer, adding a neck cleaner is something you can do to your system to truly encourage laziness..
True, it is one more thing to clean. But, as long as I have a tank up and I am running an external skimmer, I'll take cleaning the collection cup and wiper assembly once every couple of months over cleaning the collection cup alone once or twice a week. :)
Click to expand...


When you do clean your skimmer let us know what the inside of your skimmer has on the bottom. I also learned to skim wetter with the neck cleaner
 
Few pics of it up and running. It's a MTC dual venturi skimmer. Total neck length is around 14", visible part is about 10". There's a little buildup because I must've moved the adjustable blade a bit at the last cleaning, and I was too lazy to open it back up to adjust it.

Close up of collection cup, and the muck on the sides and bottom. Bottom of collection cup is 1/4" acrylic for reference.

Skimmer off. Crud buildup on wiper assembly. I've never really noticed the stuff falling off and getting back into the water column, unless I decide to adjust the skimmer to run wetter.

Skimmate container.

Closeups. Last one is trying to show how thick the stuff is.

 
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