[Flint&Eric]

I purchased this skimmer from a local reefer and got a heck of a deal on it. It's in great condition and started skimming right from the start.

initial reaction....

upon starting it up, i was surpised at the amount of air... 400LPH in a HOB skimmer is very impressive. even better is that it's very quiet. i played around with the air valve, and found leaving it wide open best and the most quiet. after talking with some other reefers using this model, it seems the airvalve isnt really needed. micro bubbles went away after the first day without the dispersion plate and i like the fact that i can also run my heater inside and hidden. so far it seems to skim about 1/2 a cup of dark skimmate a day, this is out of a 20g SPS nano!

upgrades...

deltec sells a media chamber kit for this skimmer. i havent tried running carbon, but it is something too look into to get full usage out of this skimmer.

the turbulence could be reduced, but it still skims very well. within two minutes there was a nice head of foam pushing into the collection cup. a bubble plate simmilar to the bk mini would be very cool in terms of a gadget feature, but i am not sure how much it would help performance. a fun future project nonetheless.


my complaints....

the triangle wedge collection cup is my least liked feature of this skimmer. I would prefer a round cup, but when looking at it on the tank it does blend in better as the overall shape is very square and angular.... it does collect skimmate well, but i cant imagine as well as a round cup. people complain about the size of the cup, but i dont ever see this as a problem as every skimmer i have owned gets emptied and cleaned out daily.

taking apart the skimmer is a bit of PITA. The pump is internal which is great, but means you have to manually drain the skimmer to get it off for cleaning. imo it's worth it though to only have one tube and no pump sitting inside the tank.

those are my only complaints about the skimmer, cleaning and not a round cup, but in the end the benefits of having a triangle cup (better looking overall) and internal pump (more lph and no pump in tank) out weigh my complaints.

overall...

i would definitely purchase this skimmer again, and am kicking myself i didnt earlier. at $459 it is not cheap, but imo it's the most important filtration and the best HOB skimmer you can buy. I have no doubt in my mind that this can hang with nearly equal priced in sump skimmers.