I am confused

[loftyguy]

I have never had a reef tank.I am going to start one with my 90g tank that I have been keeping cichlids in for about 2 years. The tank is drilled and I am already using an 45g sump/refugium with bio balls. The tank came with an IceCap Model 660 Electronic VHO Ballast and I have to get new light for it. Most people say to get rid of the bio balls, and I think I will. I also have some ideas about how to do the baffles on the sump/refugium

My questions is what is the best Protein Skimmer to get. I have read that Octopus Reef Protein Skimmer OCT-NW-150 is good but I am not sure. When I google reviews they seem to be split and ever one has a diffrent take on the matter.... What would you guys say?

[Mr James]

by loftyguy
....I am going to start one with my 90g tank .... using an 45g sump/refugium...

My questions is what is the best Protein Skimmer to get.

Be prepared to do a lot of reading and base your decision on multiple responses. There isn't one single answer. There are a lot of opinions.

THIS GUY (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1353300) asked what skimmer for under $300 and got some reponses. If you say "the best", are you prepared to pay for "the best"?? IMO, the best usually comes witha price tag. What is your budget??

What, besides the Octopus, has your research come up with??

[loftyguy]

I have looked at a few models. I don't recall all the names of them. I a folder of links to all the ones I am looking at. I guess my main question are not so much on Models of skimmer but how they work.

co-current or counter-current?

air pump / airstone
venturi
downdraft
beckett

I wanted to stay in the $200.00 range

[civicunrest]

To be 100% honest, of all the skimmers I've owned I liked my ASM G-3 skimmer the best. However, that's about $100 above the range you want to stay in.

However, the G-2 (which should be more than enough skimmer for a 90G w/sump) is around $200-$220 online. Mr James is right though, there's a lot to choose from, and everyone here has had some good and bad experiences with both; there's pros and cons to all of them.

[DarG]

A word on the Octopus. The pumps need to be modded to perform their best. They work out of the box but without modding I think you can probably do better for the money, atleast when you get to the 300 dollar range.
Do you want an in sump skimmer? external? One that can be used either internal or external? The needlwheel skimmers all need to be used in the sump except for the recirculating type. Most of those can be used either in or out of the sump.
Then their are Beckett skimmers and updated Venturi designs that all work real well. They require larger pumps bought seperately but are not dependant on proprietary pumps which can go down and require replacing with the same pump to get the skimmer back on line. These can be used internal or external most of the time. Raise your budget about 100 more bucks to the 300 dollar range and your options go up quite a bit. That gets you into the beckett and effective venturi price range as well as the recirculating skimmers and some better/larger in sump needlewheel skimmers. Basically it gets you into the "bang for the buck" skimmers that are effective copies of much more expensive skimmers.

That IC660 ballast you have can also run the newer T5 flourescents. The 4ft VHO is 110 watts. The 4 foot T5 is 54 watts on HO ballast but 80 watts in your Icecap ballast. It can still run 4 lamps. T5's are the most effective/efficienct flourescent lighting for our tanks right now because they allow for use of very very effective reflectors. An individual reflector is used for each T5 bulb. A 54 (or 80) watt T5 with reflector will put signifigantly more light down into the tank with higher par at depth than a VHO and do so with signifigantly less wattage. Your Icecap ballast is very usable and probably 1/2 the cost of a DIY T5 retrofit. It can be part of your new lighting unless you are wanting to go with halides or a complete plug and play fixture.

Just some things to think about.

[loftyguy]

Thanks guy that is alot to think about... I was looking at this...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Octopus-Reef-Protein-Skimmer-OCT-NW-150-NEW_W0QQitemZ150226641644QQihZ005QQcategoryZ46313QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The price seemed right but now not so sure. I do want the skimmer and all the ugly stuff in the sump.

DarG are the lights you are talking about, are they ok for soft soft corals, that is all I plan on for right now.

[DarG]

4 T5's would be fine for softies. They wouldnt need to be overdriven by the icecap ballast either. A regular high output ballast for T5's is 50 something bucks for a 4 bulb ballast. But for softies you could actually run your 4 VHO's. Im assuming that is your setup now since you have the Icecap 660.

[DarG]

The skimmer is ok. If you mod the pump its better. There are some Octopus mod threads in this forum. The search never works but somebody will have the link if you post a thread asking for them. Im not sure on the price or the real capacity of the skimmer but somebody else would know. Lots of Octopus owners in the forum. I had one for a short while, a dual pump recirc, and was not impressed with the skimmers performane in its stock form, nor the quality of the pumps, period. But thats not to say that it wouldnt do the job. I didnt want to mod it so I sold it. But lots of reefers are happy with them.

[ihopss]

Look at the DAS-1,or-2 skimmer.

[DanInSD]

I have a Euro-Reef and it is "just fine" for this size of tank. Some will tell you that they are not "optimal" but they are solid, reliable, easy to tune, and they work.

[ermartin]

+1 on the euro reef mine was tuned in a weekend