Hey NG - long time no post. I've gone from a ER needlewheel to an ATI BM160 and I believe one thing now - meshwheels can be more powerful than needlewheels in foam production and skimming ... but are also more inherently finicky and require more "fiddling" to keep things in the sweet spot. I think my BM160 outperforms my ER but it takes more hands-on to keep it performing well while my ER was more of a "drop it in a sump and forget about it" skimmer. That's for what it's worth and it's the last thing I'm going to say about skimmers since it's such a polarizing subject ... except one more thing. If you're happy with your ASM, there's nothing wrong with that but you may want to look at the other skimmers that are newer in technology and cost about the same like the Octopus or the DAS. I hear you about the cost of skimmers.
In any case, I wanted to ask why you weren't looking at doing a fuge with this tank? Having high flow / high skimming doesn't necessarily mean that you can't use a fuge with the system; the two are not exclusive of each other. If you're looking to lower nitrates/phosphates, a fuge is not a bad thing (neither is a RDSB). More export of nutrients can never be bad.
Love the planning stage of a tank ...
Spleen
01/12/2008, 12:13 AM
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