ATI Powercone i sSeries Skimmers

[bayoupr]

Anybody running the new i series by ATI? Thinking about the 200i for my next build since it's rated for 100-250gals and I will be probably be setting up anywhere from 100-140gal system not counting sump volume. Is the rating on these skimmers accurate or over/under rated?

[Dannn]

Sharing my experience with ATI i200. Last year I've bought it for my new 500l (~135g) tank, everything was ok for one month. One day I performed a water change and forgot to turn off skimmer, water level at sump rose alittle bit and I heard a little explosion and skimmer stoped. That was a some fault in pump controller and you can't replace it without replacing the pump. I've bought another pump (skimmer was odered in Germany so I couldn't easily get help from ATI, cause live far from them, in Moscow). 2nd pump worked about a week and stoped the same way. 3rd one I've took for free from local store, was dead in 5 minute... Other equipment works fine in the same condition (tuze pumps, vortech mp40, balling doser etc.) So I've said enough and took Reef Octopus Bubble blaster pump HY-5000, it fits to ATI skimmer body perfectly. This setup I still use without any problems.
The noise of both pumps are equal, RO pump draws much more air, after feeding of fishes foam in skimmer is more stable, ATI was more sensitive. One of my friends use 250i for 1.5 year without such issues with controller, but compains that perfomance of pump falls quickly and it need cleaning every 2 months. RO pump I cleaned just once. So my vote is against ATI, may be they've made some changes in controller since then, I don't know, but don't want to experiment again.

[bayoupr]

That's what I have been reading about the older units, air venturi slimes up quickly which causes the performance to drop off. Thanks

[MBSL55]

I am running the PowerCone 200iS and have been happy with it although I've only had it since the end of Sept (won the one they had at MACNA). I had read about some of the pump issues on the regular i-series and believe they have incorporated changes in the one I have that address that. Someone with an "i" series skimmer can probably chime in on that and compare with what I'll note below.

The iS I have has a soft-start feature so that if it loses power it will slowly ramp up the pump after restart.

I also did not have a proper skimmer stand for it to get it at the right water level height so I ran it for a couple of weeks with 2" more water than the max line but did not have any problems.

The remote pump control works great and I was able to tweak settings easily during break-in my monitoring the digital air flow meter so I would know much air is going into the skimmer. If the dial on the remote pump gets knocked around or accidentally adjusted I can simply reset it based on the airflow meter.

Time will tell, but I think the airflow meter will also let me know when I need to clean the pump if it shows a corresponding drop in airflow.

Right now, I have mine set to about 2850 lph airflow for a drier skimmate. I am running it on a 260g with a 70g sump and 250g total water volume. As I understand it, 2850 lph is a lot of airflow. If I need to upgrade later, I will get a 250iS as I'm happy with the 200iS right now.