PM Brings Airstone Skimmers Back!

Precision Marine is bringing the limewood airstone driven protein skimmer back with it's new Hot1v2 hang-on-the-back skimmer model rated for up to 50 gallons. Hey it's a start and I'll take it. This old-timer has said it for years, I miss airstone driven skimmers. My old 24x6 gravity-fed whisper air-pump skimmers cranked out the crud. To this day, they are hard to match for bubble density. It's great to see PM rethinking the old-school way to skim with some interesting new features. More below.




The Hot1v2 has a side-mounted airstone for quick access. Drain the 1st chamber with the ballvalve and unscrew the airstone from the side. No more airline through your skimmer cup lid and down the reaction chamber and no more air hose off the top. Cool. 8)





Precision Marine made the best ones back in the day that you could drop on the floor and they would not break. The new PM Hot1v2 skimmer looks to be no different with seriously thick acrylic.

Note the return pipe - it pulls from the bottom. This should insure that you put a lot less bubbles back in your tank. There is an adjustable side wall between the chambers as well. The Hot1v2 comes with a Maxi-jet 400. Air pump not included. See attached for specs. Shipping now. MSRP $149.

Thank you PM!!

Precision Marine Web site:
Precision Marine

 

My old maintenance routine with airstone skimmers:
- every 2 weeks scape film off of airstone
- once a month replace airstone
- every now and then look at air filter in air-pump

Airstone skimmers:
+ dense microbubbles
+ low maintenance
- some air pumps can be loud.

 

Added MSRP to 1st post.

 

I have always wanted to DIY a gravity fed airstone skimmer for my 46. Listening to some of the old guys I know in the hobby I've often wondered why "they" fixed what wasn't broken.

 

I've made some massive protein skimmers using Sweetwater Fine Pore airstones. Would they have been useful for a home tank? Nope, they were too big. However, they were in an industrial setting filtering 1000's of gallons. However, these could have easily been scaled down.

 

I haven't heard of those - I'll check them out - thanks.

To be fair, a lot of the mainstream skimmers at the time were bad - commonly very small or not a lot of counter-current. But it was really the design and not the airstone on many of them. (edit- and of course a good air-pump helps)

I found my good skimmers from Debron Aquatics if memory serves. A Colorado shop. Later I found that Precision Marine made very, very good ones. I almost bought one still around from 3reef member bama recently but it was too tall for my stand. I am excited to see PM tinkering around with them again. I got PM's gears turning on an in-sump model. Michael said 'That would be easy.' So I am keeping my finger's crossed.

matt