george1098
New member
Hi All
I have a 90 gallon reef, pretty much just FOWLR for now, with a couple softies, but my goal is to make it an awesome SPS tank. Here’s a link to the tank log
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=847805
As everyone knows, a healthy SPS tank needs powerful efficient protein skimming. I of course knew I was going to have to throw down the big bucks for a real skimmer sooner or later. I’ve also toyed with the idea of making a skimmer myself, but I really didn’t know enough about them as far as which design was best, and working with acrylic or PVC, so I chickened out. Instead I opted to go somewhere in between making my own uber skimmer, and buying one. I had read allot about the ASM skimmers, and some of the modifications that people have been doing on them, and I decided this was the approach I was going to take. ASM’s are needle wheel skimmers that are pretty low cost for the performance they offer. They are basically Euro reef clones, but use PVC bodies and Sedra pumps that help keep costs down, as opposed to cast acrylic bodies and Eheim pumps of the Euro reefs. I love euro reef skimmers, and by no means am I bashing them, but your skimmer doesn’t need to be pretty, it just needs to work.
Anyhoo, so after a little research I decided on the ASM G-3 skimmer to start off with. For the longest time I was going to go with the G-4X model, which was much bigger and much more expensive, but the G-3 eventually won me over because it seemed like the most bang for my buck, and I wouldn’t have to do any major sump modifications to be able to fit it in (12â€Âx8†is the approximate footprint. The G-4X has a footprint of 14â€Âx16â€Â).
So anyway, here it is, the ASM G-3 right out of the box. The body is 6.5†in diameter, it stands 14†high (including the collection cup), and it comes with the Sedra 5000 needle wheel pump.
and the needle wheel
I tried the skimmer out over night as it was. I did this A: because I wanted to see what the stock skimmer could do before modifications, and B: because I am hopelessly impatient by nature and I really wanted to see this baby running.
I was happy with the performance, but I defiantly saw area for improvement.
First, the bubbles in the skimmer body were pretty big. Ideally they should be about as big as the tip of a bald point pen, and these bubbles were about the size of rice grains (if rice grains were round…). I had several ideas on how to improve this. Second. The adjustable arm was pretty hard to move up and down to adjust the water level in the skimmer. I thought a gate valve would help with this. And third, I notices allot of micro bubbles coming out of the skimmer exhaust. The gate valve would also help with this.
I have a 90 gallon reef, pretty much just FOWLR for now, with a couple softies, but my goal is to make it an awesome SPS tank. Here’s a link to the tank log
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=847805
As everyone knows, a healthy SPS tank needs powerful efficient protein skimming. I of course knew I was going to have to throw down the big bucks for a real skimmer sooner or later. I’ve also toyed with the idea of making a skimmer myself, but I really didn’t know enough about them as far as which design was best, and working with acrylic or PVC, so I chickened out. Instead I opted to go somewhere in between making my own uber skimmer, and buying one. I had read allot about the ASM skimmers, and some of the modifications that people have been doing on them, and I decided this was the approach I was going to take. ASM’s are needle wheel skimmers that are pretty low cost for the performance they offer. They are basically Euro reef clones, but use PVC bodies and Sedra pumps that help keep costs down, as opposed to cast acrylic bodies and Eheim pumps of the Euro reefs. I love euro reef skimmers, and by no means am I bashing them, but your skimmer doesn’t need to be pretty, it just needs to work.
Anyhoo, so after a little research I decided on the ASM G-3 skimmer to start off with. For the longest time I was going to go with the G-4X model, which was much bigger and much more expensive, but the G-3 eventually won me over because it seemed like the most bang for my buck, and I wouldn’t have to do any major sump modifications to be able to fit it in (12â€Âx8†is the approximate footprint. The G-4X has a footprint of 14â€Âx16â€Â).
So anyway, here it is, the ASM G-3 right out of the box. The body is 6.5†in diameter, it stands 14†high (including the collection cup), and it comes with the Sedra 5000 needle wheel pump.
and the needle wheel
I tried the skimmer out over night as it was. I did this A: because I wanted to see what the stock skimmer could do before modifications, and B: because I am hopelessly impatient by nature and I really wanted to see this baby running.
I was happy with the performance, but I defiantly saw area for improvement.
First, the bubbles in the skimmer body were pretty big. Ideally they should be about as big as the tip of a bald point pen, and these bubbles were about the size of rice grains (if rice grains were round…). I had several ideas on how to improve this. Second. The adjustable arm was pretty hard to move up and down to adjust the water level in the skimmer. I thought a gate valve would help with this. And third, I notices allot of micro bubbles coming out of the skimmer exhaust. The gate valve would also help with this.
