Bubble Master Skimmers more info wanted???

[skimmy]

i'll take pics tomorrow and measure the exact level, i cant remember where the wing nut adjuster is set at...

 

[jefathome]

OK... I have waited a while before I posted any reviews b/c I wanted to give the skimmer a chance to break in first. Tomorrow will be the end of week 3 though, so I feel confident posting something.

I have a BM200 (from K&M). It was tested 5 days up in SF before it was shipped to me here in SoCal.

First a little bit about the tank. I've got a 70g Tall (36w X 16d X 30in Tall) and a 30g sump... so about 100G total. IMO it is pretty heavily stocked with 5 wrasse (mix of fairy, flasher, and Leopard), 2 clowns, LM Blenny, yellow tang, and a fire fish. It is also PACKED with coral.

I feed heavily with Prime-2 Flake and a mix of frozen that I DIY'd from the asian market. 1 cube of frozen and about 2-3 pinches of flake per day. For the Corals, I use Reef Chili or Liquid Life Bio, and Coral plankton nightly.

Now, for the BM200...

Week 1
I got about 1 cup of skim that was dark tea colored. Rinsed the neck and put it back in.

Week 2
(actually about 8 days) I only got 2c of a coffee colored nog. Starting to get a little worried here...

Week 3
(this week) I got maybe a cup worth over about 4 days. light Coffee colored again. Now I'm really worried that I wasted my money, or that I should have heeded the advice of YoucanDoIt and went with a smaller model.

Then I decided to re-read the entire thread before I went and spouted off about how it sucks. What I had forgotten was that I had set the standpipe all the way down on day-1 b/c all the 1st round people were talking about how it would overflow all the time.

After setting the standpipe as high as I could (right where it would hit the collection cup), things were much better. I got skim within about an hour of emptying the cup and cleaning the neck. Within 24hrs, there was at least a cup or more of a medium/dark green-tea colored skim.

This skimmer CAN skim dry, but I think it prefers to skim a bit wetter (Duh.. like that hasn't been said before)

Anyway, I am 100% satisfied with the skimmer. It just pulled out in 1 day what my Remora took over a week to get. I'll bet there are a ton of DOC's in my tank right now from a year of remora use. Now the BM200 can start to kick some organic butt!!

 

[cweder]

When the recirculating models come out some time this year. What will be the expected advantages.

 

[Creetin]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9485531#post9485531 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cweder
When the recirculating models come out some time this year. What will be the expected advantages.

I doubt there will be any besides having more room inside your sump.
I bet it still reacts like it does with hands in the tank. My beckett was external and did the same thing my bm250 does.
I just think they react much faster than the other comparable skimmers much like the becketts react. I think bubbles get greatly interrupted with oils and such from food and hands.

 

[jefathome]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9485531#post9485531 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cweder
When the recirculating models come out some time this year. What will be the expected advantages.

I have no experience with externals, but from what I have been told, they have greater efficiency. Like if an in-sump is rated to 100G, the re-circ could ptobably handle 150g.

Or a 200g capacity in-sump = 300g Re-circ.

Just remember though, if it is external and it goes crazy and overflows (from say some Epoxy of red-slime remover) you will have a wet floor.
That is what happened to me with my old HOB Remora.

 

[chercm]

how come my BM 250 does not have any foam at all?

 

[Creetin]

Chercm, Can you raise your waterlevel to about 8 inches? Also try to raise the outflow tube as much as you can. I thonk i see that it can go up a little higher.
How old is it?

 

[cweder]

Creetin, how does yours compare to your beckett. I am running a beckett now. Mine makes plenty of foam but the skim quality is nothing like a needle wheel or thread wheel. Mine either runs very dilute and wet or collects in the riser. Getting a cup full of dark skimate just does'nt happen.

 

[Creetin]

I did get ok skimmate, But i could not get dark stuff from a bekett either. The darkest i could get was like a tea color. Mostly build up crud around the neck as i am sure your getting too with that skimmate.
I may have had too much waterflow and not enough air. I probably should have had dual becketts, But i was tired of the noise to fiddle with it.
Now all i hear is waterfall by the tank, and i would not bother with a beckett again.

 

[Creetin]

And the skimmate with the bm is alot darker, and nastier! I never got smells like this from my beckett. ACKK I get roughly the same volume of skimmate, But almost twice as dark when i am running it somewhat wet.

 

[mavgi]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9480172#post9480172 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sjm817
Not sure I understand what you mean. Turn the skimmer around 180 so the pumps face the baffles? I can do that easily enough. I thought it would be better to have the pumps near the drains. Moving the fuge drain to the return section is not really something I want to do. Why would this matter?

Honestly, My ER skimmer worked very well in this same sump configuration and I dont see why the ATI shouldn't do the same.

I wish i have option to put the same size of your sump under my tank (nice job you did there) .

first any skimmer you put in the sump the best way it's to position the pump as far as you can from the drain pipes.
in this area the water movement strong and drain with air and the performance of the pump (any pump ) will be lower then should be.

The ER skimmer work good but the different here it's the impeller (mesh) it's work different then (needle wheel) it's more sensitive (a lot more ) and even with the GEN X with the mesh impeller it's sensitive same as the SICCE . because of that the foam collapse more quick then a regular impeller , now when the skimmer pumps sit near to the drain area pipe the foam will collaps even not in feeding time but not all way down half and build up again this will cause less skimming performance in the collection cup.

you can keep the fuge drain as is if you want but i suggest to you to put a baffle after those tower because 2 reason (i wish i could do it in my sump) :

1. the food that drain thru the pipe will stay in this area and in the end more clean water will return back to the system (the skimmer can't catch all the detritus )

2. the water movement in this area strong even if it's look calm (i don't know what pump size return the water to the tank , but even 1200GPH pump with 2 drain in the same place will creat strong water movement) and if you will make it more gentle to the skimmer area (or pump ) the performance will be better and in smaller place the skimmer will handle with the water and kill the protien better.


i also suggest to take of the elbow from the skimmer and let the water drain direct from the T line for better performance with this skimmer , the best way it's to find the correct water level for it since you don't have problem with noise of splash water.

you also need to know that if the skimmer clean in the past month your system the skimming result will reduce since the water crystal clear and there is not much to skim (because of that i add more 4 fish to my system and want to add more) .


i hope you will get better performance because i have the same skimmer as you in the past and the result can't compare and i was little confuse when i read that you have the same result with the ER .



best regards
michael

 

[my2girls]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9482611#post9482611 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by koraltek
sjm817,
in my humble opinion, i think you have your skimmer on too high of a platform, i have noticed that if we run our sump level right at the bottom of the white output hole, that we get waaay better performance out of the bm 200/250's.

Are you saying that you get the best performance when the sump water level is at the wingnut?

Does anyone notice that when you tighten the wingnut that more water leaks through the joint? In other words, tightening the wingnut tilts the standpipe so more water comes out defeating the purpose of the standpipe. Kinda frustrating.

 

[cweder]

Creetin, mine is a dual beckett and I can adjust with tons of air and it still skims basically the same or worse. Just for kicks I hooked up a ASM 1x in my sump and a day later it was pulling out darker skimmate then my twin beckett. I think this is just the way becketts work. Becketts seem to pull out plenty of stuff but its not the same quality.

So the recirculating model is external only. I thought they were working on one for the sump too.

 

[sjm817]

Here is the latest. I dropped the skimmer down. It is now in ~ 10" of water. As you can see, the outlet is submerged a little. The only reason it is this way is I have the skimmer on some PVC pipe I had kicking around. If I have to raise it up more, I'll have to make something up, but this is good for a test.

What I do notice is the bottom of the skimmer is now full of bubbles where before it seemed the swirl of bubbles stayed more toward the top of that chamber.

Yes, I love my basement sump setup! Water changes are so quick and easy it's amazing.

 

[mavgi]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9487812#post9487812 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sjm817
What I do notice is the bottom of the skimmer is now full of bubbles where before it seemed the swirl of bubbles stayed more toward the top of that chamber.

this is correct when you put the pump deep in water then the volume will be stronger when the pump near to surface less volume .



put attention it's not flood , i put mine on 4 like this Container

 

[sjm817]

Yes, I'm waiting for it to kick in and expect it may overfill/flood the cup. I'll have to raise it up another inch or so.

On another note, as I posted earlier, I ran filter socks when I had the ER skimmer. They are good at killing bubbles, and catching the silty stuff that is now collecting in the sump. I did not have this with the socks. It is a bit of a pain since they need changing every 3 - 4 days.
When running the socks, the water goes through them, instead of under like the bubble towers. Do you think that would be a better way to run? now that the pumps are away from the drains, I could change the socks without knocking the pumps off the skimmer.

 

[my2girls]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9488096#post9488096 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mavgi
this is correct when you put the pump deep in water then the volume will be stronger when the pump near to surface less volume .

Why is this? The deeper the water, the more pressure and the stronger the pump pulls? Does this change the water to air ratio within the skimmer?

 

[sjm817]

I raised it up an inch. Now it sits in 9" of water and the outlet is not at all submerged. It will take a bit for it to get going again so that i can see how the level is.

 

[lvpd186]

sjm817 - have you noticed a difference after removing the pvc from the output? I added a 90deg. elbow on mine to quite the splashing noise and I noticed a big change in performance (not in a good way). Since the end of the elbow was under water I turned it till there was an opening and things got much better. There was a difference in bubble size (smaller now) and I had to drop my exit down lower. I wonder if I should just remove the elbow altogether and just deal with a little splashing noise?

 

[sjm817]

Too early to say. My elbow was never under water though. If the skimmer does work better, I changed a few things. Turned it around 180, put it deeper in the sump and removed the elbow. It will be hard to say what made the most difference (if there is one).