Royal-Exclusiv / Vertex Cone Skimmer Club
- Thread starter JohnL
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advanced reef
New member
Be factual, vertex always owned their molds for Alpha cones, this skimmer is far from a copy and any alpha will put a B.K. To shame in performance and price,
The alphas are indeed made in Germany, with a quality pump.
Salutations
If you look above you will see that I corrected it where they are manufactured. On top of that, I am personally well aware of the Alpha's performance considering I dialed in both the Alpha 250 and the Alpha 170 for Vertex / Royal-Exclusiv after the original release of them, and had them make the appropriate adjustments and revisions to the skimmers. I believe the skimmer that was being referred to is the wine glass body shaped skimmer that BK calls a Double Cone, and Vertex calls the Omega. Both are great skimmers, and perform very well.
In my personal opinion the Alpha's are very capable skimmers, and some of the best performers on the market, period. As for putting a BK to shame (your words, not mine), I don't think I would go that far, considering they were originally built and developed by BK. Good try though.
On top of that, I still don't think a skimmer in our industry performs as good as a BK Super Marin (other than a dialed in beckett skimmer), period, but I think both the Alpha and Double Cone are VERY close to that. You would be hard pressed to find much of a difference between the three of them in my opinion.
For everyone posting to this thread, please keep it on track for what it is, an Alpha skimmer owner's thread.
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IUfan
Member
Love the new skimmer! Thanks Jeremy for your help.
Just realized that my water level is 10.3" it's supposed to be 9.5 for this skimmer, is the extra .8" going to create any issues? Should I just get some 1/2" egg crate and place under the skimmer to raise it up?
So far it's skimming really wet, I've got the output all the way open and the intake nozzle almost closed. Is this the break in stage?
Just realized that my water level is 10.3" it's supposed to be 9.5 for this skimmer, is the extra .8" going to create any issues? Should I just get some 1/2" egg crate and place under the skimmer to raise it up?
So far it's skimming really wet, I've got the output all the way open and the intake nozzle almost closed. Is this the break in stage?
advanced reef
New member
If you look above you will see that I corrected it where they are manufactured. On top of that, I am personally well aware of the Alpha's performance considering I dialed in both the Alpha 250 and the Alpha 170 for Vertex / Royal-Exclusiv after the original release of them, and had them make the appropriate adjustments and revisions to the skimmers. I believe the skimmer that was being referred to is the wine glass body shaped skimmer that BK calls a Double Cone, and Vertex calls the Omega. Both are great skimmers, and perform very well.
In my personal opinion the Alpha's are very capable skimmers, and some of the best performers on the market, period. As for putting a BK to shame (your words, not mine), I don't think I would go that far, considering they were originally built and developed by BK. Good try though.
On top of that, I still don't think a skimmer in our industry performs as good as a BK Super Marin (other than a dialed in beckett skimmer), period, but I think both the Alpha and Double Cone are VERY close to that. You would be hard pressed to find much of a difference between the three of them in my opinion.
For everyone posting to this thread, please keep it on track for what it is, an Alpha skimmer owner's thread.
Directed at Klaus Jeremy.
Not to totally hijack your thread, but the alpha cones were a Vertex design from the onset. the molds are also owned by Vertex.
Ive also had supermarins and some of the more expensive Bk, i still stand by comment of the Cone design being superior in all aspects.
Your information is completely inaccurate. The cone body existed from Royal-Exclusiv in late 2007 or early 2008, before Vertex even existed as a company actually. The original info about them surfaced on ultimatereef.net back then. At the time Proline was distributing all of the BK skimmers here in North America.
Proline wanted to get their own product line going thus the company Vertex was founded. It made perfect sense for Proline / Vertex to invest the money into the molds for the body of the Alpha skimmer since they were already working with Royal-Exclusiv. The entire skimmer was not only manufactured, but also fully designed by Klaus at Royal-Exclusiv, not Jason and Shane (at the time) from Proline / Vertex. This was when the body pictures surfaced back in February 2009.
This will be the last post about who produced what, when, and where. Please put the thread back on topic now. Thanks.
hobbzz
How do I change this?
Hi guys. Is there a way to tell if an Alpha 250 has been made before the changes with the transition? Any distinguishing features like colors of gaskets or volutes etc etc? How long ago did the changes take place? More than three years? I haven't been having much luck searching.
Jeremy - Do you have any Alpha 250's left in stock? They aren't on your site so I'm guessing no. If not, do you have a time frame yet? Thanks.
Jeremy - Do you have any Alpha 250's left in stock? They aren't on your site so I'm guessing no. If not, do you have a time frame yet? Thanks.
I can't comment on the new Alpha's, as I won't be getting them, but I can help with the Royal-Exclusiv built Alpha skimmers. All Royal-Exclusiv built Alpha's will have "Royal-Exclusiv" on the lid of the skimmer cup. I don't believe any Vertex built Alpha's have made it into North America yet, so any Alpha out there as of now is a Royal-Exclusiv built model.
There are no original batch skimmers out there that still have the first nozzle they shipped with. We sold the entire first batch, and everyone we sent the skimmers to got an updated nozzle back in 2010. Note this is not the adjustable nozzle, but the original red nozzle, which I actually prefer over the adjustable nozzle. If you have a non-adjustable screw nozzle pull out the red pipe that's inside it and measure it, it should read 47mm in length.
slief
RC Sponsor
Your interpretation is correct. I mark my adjustable volutes with a sharpe pen so I can see how much I am turning. As for your overflowing, try lowering your sump level or raising your skimmer .5" to 1". 10" is very high in my opinion & will make it very difficult to find the sweet spot. Do this after opening the volute more to see if it will stabilize but 10" depth will make my Alpha 300 go nuts!
IUfan
Member
Thanks, I put some egg crate under there, so it's sitting at about 9 n a 1/3" of water. Wedge pipe fully open and Venturi 2 turns out. I unplugged the drain hose, and just letting it drain out instead of it overflowing and splashing my stand, it's still skimming really really wet, it would pretty much fill the cup in 10 seconds. Still have 5 more days of break in, so will sit patiently.
Just wanted to make sure I had it set up correctly.
Just wanted to make sure I had it set up correctly.
Av8bluewater
New member
Hi all, I bought a used A250. I just started the cycle on new tank so I haven't adjusted the height and settings yet. Question: My sump water level is about 11" so I plan to raise it to the 9.5 inch range. I see some on egg crate. I was thinking about putting it on a piece of acrylic to take advantage of the rubber feet. Would that really matter? I was thinking it may dampen any vibrations. Also . . I have an older non adjustable volute... should I order one for the Red Dragon?
This thing was pulling a lot of nasty rock dust within just a few minutes.
This thing was pulling a lot of nasty rock dust within just a few minutes.
Whatever you can use to raise it up would be just fine, as long as it doesn't create much vibration and hum from doing so.
As far as the adjustable volute goes, I would just stick with the original one. In my opinion this one performs better than the adjustable, as it's slightly larger diameter.
As far as the adjustable volute goes, I would just stick with the original one. In my opinion this one performs better than the adjustable, as it's slightly larger diameter.
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