New Skimmer

Possibly Upgrading the skimmer on my tank.

Which would ya'll pick, if it were your choice?

The Reef Octopus TDNW 300
Or the Reeflo 200 Orca

Reef Octopus TDNW 300 Recirculating Protein Skimmer 12" dia. 3 Pumps* - AquaCave

Leaning towards the Octo myself. Have the opportunity to pick both up for a good price.

 

Anyone have experience with the Octo listed above? Really leaning in that direction.

 

Octos have a great reputation and there are a ton out there. Don't see how you go wrong with that. Personally, if it were me, for a none cone, best bang for the buck skimmer, I would look no further than the Vertex line. Great design, balance, build and value. What more do you want?

My K2 is doing well. I don't see cones being "the biggest advancement in skimmer tech of all time". More like just a tweek same as bubble plates. They were not well recieved at first, but are on everything now. Cone are just an improvement on the low turbulence theory. So I'm not going to tell you you are wasting your money on anything besides what I have.;D

I know you were talking about moving up in tank size, but seems to me the Octo you are looking at is extreme overkill for what I remember you talking about. How big are you going?

 

Probably keeping it on my 75 with a 75 gallon sump for the time being. As soon as I can find a decent deal on a 180, I will go with that. And yes, it's extreme overkill, but for $400, it's not a bad deal ;D

I was looking at cones. I was thinking about an I-Tech as well. The bullet just isn't ... efficient as I'd like.

 

There was some sutdies circulating on RC about how skimmers only remove 30% of total disollved organics. It was repeated back to by Warner Marine. I don't mind overdriven skimmers. I think my new K2 is about as big as I could put on my 90g, but I would also be comfortable moving up to a 150g.

Having said that, I do think you can put too big of a skimmer on a system and have it actually not perform well due to such low amounts of dissolved organics to even build a foam head. I feel your Oct on a 120g would fall in that catagory. Even a 180g using skimmer rated for a 800g system seems way too much. Some folks tend to think rating double is a good over kill. So something rated for a 400g on a 180g.

 

Interesting thought. It could possibly skim until it couldn't skim anymore, so to speak?

I will have to noodle on this one.

 

For $400 you can't lose with it. Looks like a great choice to me.

 

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That is a beast.

$1,000 without a pump, $400 with pumps... The $1,000 skimmer is out of my range, unfortunately.

What are thoughts on Kevin's post regarding the possibility of not having enough organics left in the water to develop a foam head? That is concerning me, considering that the skimmer is rated for 800 and would be running on approximately 150 total gallons.

 

thats just one skimmer off of that site there are others, you need to make up your mind, is it for a 75 or a 180, cuz it does matter. skmmers only pull so much out, but you can also over skim and under skim depending on the ratio. a recirc with a mesh mod is ideal, the more contact time the better. the more water you can put through a skimmer the better if the contact time is high, and with a recirc it does just that. skimmers without recirc need less flow and are not able to pull that much out. long story short, can a skimmer stop making foam, yes. if you plan on feeding the tank heavy, then a bigger skimmer is suggested.