Skimmer Q&A Thread

viggen said:
Completely agree on the sro, I haven't owned one just looked at numerous videos online and also use a bb5000 pump on my old skimmer. As you state the air to water ratio doesn't seem ideal. Even with the bubble plates there seems to be a lot of turbilance in their skimmers, I mostly looked at the 5000/6000/7000 line

I have always thought a big factor in skimming is dwell time. When bubble plates are used the area above that is the chamber thus even though the skimmer you are considering is listed with a 10 in base..... It's orobably 7-8 inches above the bubble plate? Maybe less?

Do keep us posted :)
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Thanks and I will. And you're pretty much spot on they said it was about 8" above the pump which is what I was looking for.

Both salty critters and seaside answered my questions pretty much the same and both responded with in the hour on a Saturday morning so that really impressed me. It was a Tom from sea side replied back from his iPhone. Seems like they both knew this skimmer pretty well and thought it was a good fit. Salty critters said they have the es2 on some maintenance accounts and were happy with it. That all just sealed the deal for me buying it just for the support alone.
 
I got the Sea Side Aquatics ES2 in today! That was pretty fast. It could have been boxed a bit better. The pump was kind of loose unpackaged in there but everything else was packaged and wrapped up well. Really wasn't much room for the pump to move but wasn't expecting it to just be laying there when I took the top foam layer off.

First impressions are good. Material seems like really good quality. 1/4" acrylic used for the body and collection cup. The seem could have been polished out but I was expecting it as its in all the photos I've seen.

I really like the design of it overall. Easy 1/4 turn cup removal. The exit/vent pipe can easily be positioned exactly the direction you want and super smooth fine adjustments. Haven't seen any microbubbles escaping so far and water exits pretty much at the base. I like it sits lower in the sump then the sro-3000sss does. I have it at just under 9" of water right now. I love that the base attaches to the body. I really hated the SRO just pressed together and very easily came apart. Otherwise nothing really special about the rest of it. Standard cone and standard bubble plate with count sunk drilled holes. It is a bit bigger then it looks in the pictures but not much.

The listed dimensions are spot on and nice small foot print being a sump saver design and the straight up exit/vent/adjustment pipe. The cone just above the pump is slightly under 8". The neck is about 4.5". I believe it will be a well balanced skimmer with the psk1000 in there. I'm really hoping for long term stability that I didn't quite have with the sro3000sss. Time will tell. I would say though I wouldn't put this on anything over a 180.

Then the most important part to my wife and future guests, this is by far the quietest skimmer I've ever not heard. As long as it stays this way my wife will be super happy and that will make me even happier. I modified the output of the SRO with a T and vent pipe. There's a crazy $50 piece you can buy separate but made my own for under $5. But you could still hear it in the room next door. The only noise I can hear on this ES2 is if I put my ear right up to the air intake silencer or lift the lid off and hear the fizz of the bubbles.

Putting the skimmer together was really easy and didn't realize there was directions until I was done and throwing everything in the box. The only issue I had was the bubble plate nylon screw was to long. In order to tighten it down so the top plate wasn't loose it would push the entire housing up and not be level. So I got a small piece of tubing that fit over the scew and used it as sort of a washer. Its just something I had laying around I could easily trim to size.

Had to put a spacer to secure the plate and allow it to remain level and not be pushed up
f6fff2e21bb146aba40c8c4e23f9a0a4.jpg


Output fully open and facing the camera. After putting in the sump I took the pipe out and reversed its direction.
39ab226a21147f7e9ff75a0ca1533e71.jpg



Now to let it break in and wait to see if I goofed or not
c7823caac35392bb5311e4f2aa9d5765.jpg
 
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So far I'm very happy with this seaside aquatics es2 skimmer. Its constantly producing even after scaling it back. It started producing right away but I wouldn't say it was broken in per say. I'd say its fully broken in now which is really pretty quick. A week to break in is perfect. Also, its still very quite which is perfect as we had guests over since last Wednesday staying in our new spare room next to the fish room. They didn't hear anything from the sump. Now to see how the long term consistency and reliability is like.

Here's 4 days of skimmate now dialed back a bit and probably where I'll keep it.

ac9f2da476ffcd051e50e4e1bd50bc5e.jpg


0dba04ddd0d1a39bbc26e550bcde209c.jpg
 
Hi, what would you suggest for a 40g cube with a medium to high bioload?
Atm I'm using a Tunze 9410 but I think it's not properly sized as for three days the skimmate is pretty much not existing, then it fills half the cup, then again pretty nothing and so on.
 
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indyjaco said:
Where did you get the skimmer from? Fish Street? How is it on noise? I am going to be building a 200-250 gallon system shortly and finding a skimmer which is reasonably priced is rather hard.
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Sorry I didn't answer sooner. I seldom get on this site as much as I'd like. I ended up getting this on eBay. I looked around and nobody had any better of a price. It's a bit quiter than my GSM was. I mean truly, a lot quieter. I get more noise from the overflow pipe dropping water into the filter sock in the sump/refugium than I get from the skimmer. It really works well.:celeb3:
 
By the way. If you go on eBay...look up Bubble Magus NAC66. Price on buy it now is $330 w/free s/h and you will get two filter socks for free. I looked around for a month to find it cheaper, or even a cheaper skimmer from another company with a similar footprint to fit my refugium/sump tank. This was the best I could do without spending about $450 on a skimmer that still required the purchase of a separate pump and tubing to bring the cost to OVER $500. For the price and size....I think it's a really good skimmer. The neck is also super wide so that I can get my hand inside to clean once a month. I didn't like that the bubble plate is glued in place though. My twin pumps suck in about 30 baby snails over the course of a month and the glued in plate makes it a slight challenge to get them out. So, the monthly cleaning means detaching the pumps, pulling out the injector tubes that connect the pumps to the bubble plate and then flushing the skimmer with a little water and swirling it on it's side to get the snails out. I've done just one cleaning so far and it took 10 minutes to get 30+ snails out and get the body cleaned. Total time out of the sump was about 35 minutes to drain, wipe out, collect snails, reassemble and get running again.
 
Hello im building a 125. Will have a 45 sump and fuge combo. Honestly this will be my first big salt tank. Plan on fowlr for now but would love to venture into some softies and leathers later down the road. Can you please point me in the right direction. Obviouslly would like to accommodate all my wants later down the road without having to upgrade. Looking at 24" max height and would like it to be semi quiet without having to spend 400$
Thank you so much in advance.
 
I had a GSM3 that worked great in that size tank. They're cheap to come by used on places like eBay. But, replacement pumps cost $100-150 depending on the size of the pump. Pumps are also available on eBay. There are many nicer brands out there...but the GSM is easy to use and reasonably cheap. maybe someone else out there has a better option?
 
Thank you for the input. On the note of used, I don't really want to go that route just because this is my first big tank and thus my first big skimmer, I'd really like to buy one and not have to monkey with it right off the bat. A friend told me about Venturi skimmers, inparticularly the SVS2. Looks like a wonderful skimmer but we are talking 600$ after tax and shipping. Thats why I came here :)
 
I was just figuring the size you wanted at a reasonable cost. Protein skimmers are expensive. No way around it. I suggested the GSM because it is easy to adjust and use, and the pumps are easy to come by and easy to change when they go bad. The Bubble Magus curve7 can handle twice your tank capacity and fits your dimensions. $285 on ebay. The curve5 is rated for 140g, but is probably more like 110g for $200 w/shipping. I like the Bubble Magus line because they are quiet, easy to change out pumps on and they work once you break them in and get them fine tuned to what you want(just like many others). And unlike many other brands, the pump is included in the purchase price. If you don't like the looks of them, just keep posting periodically and see what others have to say?
 
Now that is just awesome looking ^^^

I'm wanting to try out a life reef 30" after seeing some great reviews on them but probably won't be for a while. For now I've been extremely happy with this seaside aquatics. It has been very consistent so far but to soon to see long term if it stays that way. So far more consistent than my sro3000sss was as it would go wet to dry to nothing on a daily basis which I didn't mind. It was the periodic overflows that I hated. If that happens again with the ES2 I'll pull it and try out a lifereef.
 
Thank you again for the reply. The bubble mag 7 definitely looks appealing. Instead of sounding so noob and basing what I wanted on price I should have just came out and asked what good protien skimmers are out there for my size. I will definitely be looking into that one thank you.
 
ksed said:
Beauty. What were you using before.
Click to expand...

This is a new setup, my old 600 was using a spazz volcano before needlewheels became the rage, was a nice skimmer too.

RE0SMXc.jpg


Heard great things about MTC (even better than lifereef) and thought I would try it.
 
Wow! I remember those skimmers.


clekchau said:
This is a new setup, my old 600 was using a spazz volcano before needlewheels became the rage, was a nice skimmer too.

RE0SMXc.jpg


Heard great things about MTC (even better than lifereef) and thought I would try it.
Click to expand...
 
New Tank has been up for a month, have a 60 gallon rimless w a 20 gallon sump, using hose rinsed and air dried filter socks that have been through 2 cycles, and have a remora CPR HOB nano skimmer. Yes it's undersized, working on an octopus eventually.

However in the mean time this has happened twice in the last 24 hours
imagejpg1-9.jpg

Whats happening? Did some sort of crappy hose water residue end up in the filter socks and it's causing bubbles perhaps? Does this happen ever on its own to skimmers, or is some form if contamination of soap or chemicals to blame? Should I pull out and clean out the whole skimmer or maybe turn it off for a day.

All tank parameters are in line, 0 ni, 0 na, 1.0255, 7.9 ph, 480 calcium, 78 water
 
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