Snarkys
.Registered Member
have now owned three of the more prevalent hang on skimmers and i thought id post a review for anyone who may be in the market for one or thinking about upgrading.
First was the prism pro deluxe like $150 new . If dialed in right this thing can work OK but the problem is you need to toy with it on a daily basis to get it to function well. real pain in the butt if ya ask me. My main issue with it though is sometimes it just goes nuts and produces a ridiculous amount of wet foam that spills out the top of the collection cup all over your floor. this is not acceptable to me at all so i replaced it with what everyone said was one of the best hang on's around , the aquac remora pro.
Seems everyone on RC recommends this thing and says it does a fantastic job so I bit and bought the aquac remora pro ($270 with the overflow box). I have to say i am disappointed in this thing on so many levels . First it is extremely noisy, I got used to it after a while but I'm sure it bothered any guests i had over. The unit also has two crappy options for what to do with your pump. either you have that huge mag 3 dangling in your tank or you use the ridiculously large overflow box. I personally choose the overflow box because IMO it looked better but i was not happy about it. lastly the thing was extremely inconsistent , it was either producing absolutely nothing or it would go nuts and fill the cup in 20 min with clear water. even on the occasion that it did slowly fill with wet foam it never had the stench of any of the other skimmers. there really isn't anything about this unit that i liked at all, looked bad , made a ton of noise and extremely ineffective. I had pretty much given up on hang on skimmers and decided that they all suck and i should just do more water changes. however after some research i decided last week to try the deltec MCE600.
Even though everyone loves deltecs and they all say this was great a great unit i kinda thought in the back of my head that this was going to just be another piece of crap but for a change i would spend $440 rather than $150 or $270 on a crappy HoB skimmer. Well i have to say i was delightfully wrong about this unit. This skimmer runs almost silent, just a very low hum that can only be heard from a few feet away. if i used the dampening kit they gave me, even that noise would prolly go away. maybe 1/10 the noise of the remora . The deltec is also extremely unobtrusive and only you hardly even notice it is in the tank . just a clear pipe in the tank rather than a huge box or pump. More importantly the unit is a billion times easier to adjust and after one day is already producing a thick dry stinky foam that i am very happy with. i am very happy i broke and spent the money on this thing, I don't have even one complaint .
on a side note the remora with overflow box sold on ebay within a few hours for $200 so i was able to upgrade to this for $270 with shipping. IMO money very well spent
anyone who comes across this post while searching for info on one of these skimmers should feel free to bump this so others can see it and not have to waste money on the useless cheaper brands of hob skimmers. If i had it to do over again i would either buy this one first or go without a skimmer and do more water changes as the others are almost useless.
First was the prism pro deluxe like $150 new . If dialed in right this thing can work OK but the problem is you need to toy with it on a daily basis to get it to function well. real pain in the butt if ya ask me. My main issue with it though is sometimes it just goes nuts and produces a ridiculous amount of wet foam that spills out the top of the collection cup all over your floor. this is not acceptable to me at all so i replaced it with what everyone said was one of the best hang on's around , the aquac remora pro.
Seems everyone on RC recommends this thing and says it does a fantastic job so I bit and bought the aquac remora pro ($270 with the overflow box). I have to say i am disappointed in this thing on so many levels . First it is extremely noisy, I got used to it after a while but I'm sure it bothered any guests i had over. The unit also has two crappy options for what to do with your pump. either you have that huge mag 3 dangling in your tank or you use the ridiculously large overflow box. I personally choose the overflow box because IMO it looked better but i was not happy about it. lastly the thing was extremely inconsistent , it was either producing absolutely nothing or it would go nuts and fill the cup in 20 min with clear water. even on the occasion that it did slowly fill with wet foam it never had the stench of any of the other skimmers. there really isn't anything about this unit that i liked at all, looked bad , made a ton of noise and extremely ineffective. I had pretty much given up on hang on skimmers and decided that they all suck and i should just do more water changes. however after some research i decided last week to try the deltec MCE600.
Even though everyone loves deltecs and they all say this was great a great unit i kinda thought in the back of my head that this was going to just be another piece of crap but for a change i would spend $440 rather than $150 or $270 on a crappy HoB skimmer. Well i have to say i was delightfully wrong about this unit. This skimmer runs almost silent, just a very low hum that can only be heard from a few feet away. if i used the dampening kit they gave me, even that noise would prolly go away. maybe 1/10 the noise of the remora . The deltec is also extremely unobtrusive and only you hardly even notice it is in the tank . just a clear pipe in the tank rather than a huge box or pump. More importantly the unit is a billion times easier to adjust and after one day is already producing a thick dry stinky foam that i am very happy with. i am very happy i broke and spent the money on this thing, I don't have even one complaint .
on a side note the remora with overflow box sold on ebay within a few hours for $200 so i was able to upgrade to this for $270 with shipping. IMO money very well spent
anyone who comes across this post while searching for info on one of these skimmers should feel free to bump this so others can see it and not have to waste money on the useless cheaper brands of hob skimmers. If i had it to do over again i would either buy this one first or go without a skimmer and do more water changes as the others are almost useless.
