what skimmer??

I love my SWC extreme 160 cone. I have had it for over a year now with no issues. I recommend them to my friends all the time as well as Bubble Magus skimmers.

 

i have an swc skimmer and in the first month had pump problems. not to happy, to have problems in a month, is really not the quality. i can say they sent me a new impeller and were very good about it. but what will happen a month from now? or 6 months. i have lost trust in this skimmer. today it was over flowing for no reason. its making me think why did i switch from the tunze brand
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The Aquamaxx line has some pretty good bang-for-the-buck in the midrange skimmer world; might be worth a look for you.

 

my budget allows between $350 - $450 , i also would like to upgrade to a larger tank in the future so i want to go with a pretty good size skimmer

 

also im curious how much skimmate a good skimmer produces, mine now collects about an inch a week...

 

I collect about an inch in 2-3 days, I don't think the skimmer is fully broken in yet either (its been running for a week and a half). The collection cup is very large too so that inch in my cup might be two in yours, no way to tell without comparing. So far no issues at all though. I did a LOT of research and never found any negative reviews. I do have a shop friend thats a distributor and he said their customer service is awesome.

 

Thats a pretty hard question. It will depend on how wet/dry your skimmer is running, size of the skimmer, overall tank health, water quality, bioload, everything.

 

Unless you have a plan and KNOW you will be going bigger SOON... don't bother. I like to size my skimmer 125-150% of what my tank is. The only span a skimmer can reasonably make is two times... so that is 100-200 gallons. Yet everyone says they will be going bigger but rarely do. In that case you just spent too much for your needs, took up too much room in your sump, and use more power doing it. Those folks I do see going bigger get all new stuff to replace the crap they bought before, or find a sweet package deal.

So generally just get what will fill your needs and cross the "going bigger 'bridge when you get there.

SWC, Octopus, Vertex, Aquamaxx.. are all good mid range. Octo has the widest possible range to fit any budget up to good. there are others above ther. Forget AquaC EV... dated, power hungry, finicky, and inconsistent.

 

thanks so much for the input, went with the swc 160!