Quote:
Originally posted by RandyStacyE
Most skimmers will skim … this is a given, but some skimmer differ greatly in price which makes us wonder what truly makes the difference? Air draw does and with that so does the skimmer’s dimensions.
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alot of what makes the high priced skimmers cost so much is the importing of them from europe. the price of everything comming from europe is going up the first of the year. watch the price of the tunze streams. i have heard from a friend of mine who owns a fish store that the prices are going up 12% the first of the year. alot of this has to due with the valuse of the dollar being low and the value of the euro being really high. the current exchange rate for the euro to dollar is 1 euro to 1.47019 US dollar so if somethig costs $1,000 in europe it will cost $1,470.19 here in the usa plus the cost of shipping it here. this is why deltec, bubble king, H&S so on and so on cost alot more than our american made skimmers do.
the only other thing that differes in a skimmer is its quality and its performance. the higher quality the higher the price. also the higher the performance the more involved it is to build a skimmer and the more parts that are involved in the building process. but in some ways a higher priced skimmer can save you money in the long run by saving energy. it cost alot to run a big skimmer and the more you can save in energy the less money you pay in the long run. i know some people say its not a big enough energy savings to pay for itself. but if you look at the cost of energy in california or florida, this is just a couple of the places where energy effecient skimers can pay for themselves in a couple of years over the cost to run other skimers.
you also have to look atthe water change inervals when your using a top of the line skimmer. you dont need to do as many water changes and they dont need to be as big of a water change if your skimmer is doing it job properly. this will save you money in salt costs, filter changes, and di resen expenses.