Over the back or in the sump skimmers

[frezel]

i have had my tank for about 10 years and it has relativily been 0 maintence, water change every 6 months etc, the tank has been doing great, but i have noticed that friends tank his coral grow alot faster than mine and probally so because he keeps on his tank frequently, so i made a new years resolution to break my what aint broke dont try to fix plan and start back with the attention to my tank.. I wanted to begin running my skimmer i curently have an excaliubur in sump model i got from LFS and its efficiently is determined on the amount of water in sump. i have a 55 gallon tank and a 10 gallon sump, sux i know, but for now it will have to do. do you think its worth getting a OTB skimmer which would work consistleny regardless of water level, and yes adding make up water is almost impossible everyday for me, and beings that its so small water evaporates pretty quickly..

Let me know your feelings on OTB vs in the sump skimmers thanks

 

[PUGroyale]

You could look into getting an auto top off [ATO] for your sump instead... If you are happy with the performance of the skimmer you have, hook up a simple ATO and keep your sump level [and your salinity ] stable.

If you're a DIY type person look here...

http://www.floatswitches.net/

If not...

http://autotopoff.com/

As for HOT skimmers if you want to go that way... IMO the only ones worth consideration are Deltec MCE600, Coralife superskimmer, Turboflotor, and maybe the AquaC remora... hth

 

[frezel]

any suggestion of manufactors an or models, links etc,

 

[gdm42001]

I built my own auto top off system, pretty simple

• 5 gallon bucket
• mag 3 pump
• Ultralife Float Switch (for the tank)
• Sealed Mechanical Float switch(to protect the mag 3)
• 6 feet of hose

The Ultralife Float Switch is plugged into Mechanical float switch.
The Sealed Mechanical float switch is in the bucket tie wrapped to the hose going from the mag 3 up to the tank. It will kill the power to the Ultralife Float Switch when the bucket runs dry.