skimmer and water questions

KErickson978 · #1 09/21/2007, 01:20 PM

My first question is i found a skimmer thats called the seaclone 100 made by marineland from the creaters of instant ocean, and is rated for up to a hundred gallons. i was planning on using it on a 29 gallon reef with a ten gallon refugum.. is this a good skimmer? or should i veer the other direction...
the other question is can i use treated tap water to start up the tank (first fill only) or distilled/ro all the way.
thanks for the advise -K

jsr · #2 09/21/2007, 01:35 PM

From what I understand they are a very poor skimmer. They do not perform as stated. Spend the money on something good. I just bought an Octopus NW200 and will be installing it this weekend.

As for water, use RO/DI from the start. Better safe then sorry.

KErickson978 · #3 09/21/2007, 01:37 PM

cool thank you, will do with the water... im probally going to buy a RO system.... need it anyway for all the dartfrogs..

kevinohio · #4 09/21/2007, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by KErickson978
cool thank you, will do with the water... im probally going to buy a RO system.... need it anyway for all the dartfrogs..

Just dont skimp on the RO. I did on my first unit and had to replace it.
I went with RO/DI on the second one, got it from buckeye field supply. A sponsor of this site. My TDS is Zero, and they were very helpful during set up.

der_wille_zur_macht · #5 09/21/2007, 02:48 PM

+1 more vote for using quality water from the start, and +1 more vote that the seaclone is crap. Even at it's best, it is using wildly outdated technology that won't be as efficient or powerful as something with a more recent design.

jsr · #6 09/21/2007, 03:28 PM

Kevinohio brings up a good point....Get a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter as well. You can get these off ebay for like $15. These are used to test the water from your tap, after the RO membrane, and after the DI cartridge. You will be able to tell if your unit is performing optimally. You should see a 98% or higher rejection rate when you compare the tap water with water after the membrane. After the DI cartridge you should see 0 TDS.

KErickson978 · #7 09/22/2007, 01:51 AM

sounds good, thanks again for the info =)

aquarius77 · #8 09/22/2007, 02:12 AM

I have been running a seaclone 100 on about 70 gallons of water for quite some time. I just replaced it with a coralife super skimmer 65, not a great improvement but it was what i could afford. I now run the seaclone on my softie tank wich and run the coralife on the larger tank and in 2 days the superskimmer pulled out 2 weeks worth of what the seaclone would have.

Dont buy a seaclone unless you can get it next to free.

Dr Begalke · #9 09/22/2007, 02:23 AM

i would pass on the seaclone.

triggerjay · #10 09/22/2007, 02:24 AM

I ran a seaclone for a while.... junk! even with the mods.. junk!

Jason