Life Reef Skimmers
 

For those of you who have owned or own, used or have used, life reef skimmers have you been pleased with them? I'm thinking of getting one for the new tank set up.


I will say the owner was very nice and spent a lot of time with me talking about which skimmer would work best for me. Answered a lot of my questions and seems to know his stuff when it comes to the physics of skimming. At least I know he will answer the phone and be able to address my questions unlike the people at Kessil who still have not been able to help me figure out these light settings.

One of the best you can get. Never changes.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2399643

Love it, truly set and forget unlike many of the other "top of the line" skimmers

Unfortunately I have a better skimmer and I am thinking of possibly selling mine. It is an Ok skimmer but there are better for a lower price.

What is it you don't like about it? I assuming you mean getting rid of the Life Reef.

Thanks

Mine is very inconsistent. It will skim a few days then stop. It is not due to my bioload as my RLSS skims non stop. I have used a mag 9.5 and a jecod dct 6000. I have comparison videos on youtube feel free to check them out under pablomay28.

Im not doubting your experience but unfortunately you are part of an extremely small minority.
In fact, probably the first I have ever heard that had an inconsistent LifeReef (run in a consistent level of water).

Yup it sucks for me. I purchased it because of the reviews here and had a completely different experience. I ran it in 9 inches of water as recommended here but found it to work better in 9 3/4 that is the depth of my Reefer 450 sump and the same depth that I run the RLSS. I told you about the videos so you can see the noise before and after the silencer I made and the type of skim it pulls. I am a strong believer in reading reviews as well as watching videos on products that I plan to purchase especially if i will pay $500+ for it.

Rock solid for me and a great performer, works very well.

To be honest though, I had a very poor joint between the lower PVC joint and the acrylic housing that Jeff had me repair with some plastic epoxy versus sending it back to him. Coupled with some crazing in the collection cup and a failed Life Reef venturi (Jeff replaced this), they are good performing units, regardless of imperfections.

Apparantly this guy makes the only 100% reliable external overflow that never loses siphon and always restart after power start. That's a good clue he knows what he's doing. If he can do that his skimmers probably work pretty well.

Maybe the Lifereef is pulling all the crap out quicker and then sits "idle"? Where as the RLSS is just keeping up with it?

Maybe? Maybe not?

I have a SVS2-24 on a heavy stocked 125 gallon SPS reef and I love it. Truly set it and forget it. Two features that I like are, you can use any pump and the collection cup will not overflow. Lastly Jeff provides excellent customer service. Buy with confidence!

I can vouch for this.
I ran two of them. One on a frag tank and another on a mangrove tank.

You're never going to have a product where 100% of its users are happy. There's just too many variables at play. And there's nothing wrong with that. The 1% or whatever shouldn't feel bad about it or feel like they need to defend themselves.
And some just don't like the size, or the wattage used, etc. Nothing wrong with that.
But I bet LifeReef does have the highest % of customer satisfaction.

OP, if you haven't already, you may want to go to the lifereef website and read the Testimonials page. There's a lot of good info there because many of the reviews give specific reasons why they feel these skimmers are better than what they've run in the past.

+1 for lifereef, can't say enough good things about their products.

+1 love our lifereef and will never buy anything different.


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Pablo-
I saw your skimmer video on Youtube when you were using the DCT 6000 pump and even though the skim mate looks to be wet, the foam level in the skimmer looks low. It shouldn't be pulsing below the flange

I don't know why the skimmer is noisy for you, I can't hear anything from mine

Just ordered a mazzei for it. Figured Id give it another try before calling it quits. Ill post a video once I get the Mazzei but so far nothing comes even close to skimming as good as my RLSS. I bet that if any other lifereef owner here had a chance to try the RLSS they would drop lifereef in a second. It is just a better skimmer all arround. It uses less power and less space and it is way quieter and best of all it skims a way better for less $$. Btw the RLSS does not stop skimming when I feed or stick my hand in the tank like the lifereef does. Any others here had experince with any other DC skimmer vs lifereef???

I haven't tried an RLSS.
I'm not fond of cones, needle wheels, proprietary pumps...
But I also haven't had any of the problems your are describing.
You mentioned earlier about the skimmer being in 9" of water which is about where mine is I believe. I usually keep my water about half way over the output or completely covering it. Doesn't seem to matter all that much. But azjohnny made an important observation, the water level should be right around the top of the skimmer body, right at the flange or just slightly below.
Have you tried running it at that level?
The only thing that ever phases mine is a change in water level in the sump because this changes the water level in the skimmer body.
Hands in the tank, feeding, dosing, etc does nothing to effect the skimmer performance.

Life Reef Skimmers
 

I will give my opinion but I will first say that it's been a while since I've owned one.
This first thing I will say is it skims well and is easily adjustable due to the gate valve. The build quality and and features leave a lot to be desired. It has a very home made feel to it and the o-ring for the neck is just a loose oring that you have to finagle on every time you take the cup on and off. The non clogging injector is just not true. It clogs and if you pull fresh air it clogs even more. To me it is a very basic and dated design. Does it work? Yes. Is it the best? That's for the end user to decide.

His costumer support is second to none. You talk directly to the builder and that's rare.
Don't even get me started on his arrogance and propaganda style advertising.

That all being said if I were to come across one cheap I'd probably try it again just for fun since I have learned a lot about reefing since first owning one.
I doubt it would impress me over my ATB though.





Kc3

All I can say is that I've tried pretty much every type of skimmer made today, on a variety of different sized tanks, and I'm quite happy that I went back to a Lifereef skimmer.

It's a bit oversized for my tank, and it will go through moments of light skimming, due to the light bioload, but my tank stays very "clean" and the skim it does pull out is some of the darkest, nastiest gunk I've ever seen. I rarely have to adjust it, it's very quiet as long as I keep the air line on tight and has never clogged up on me, even though I split the air line between the collection cup and a CO2 scrubber/filter.

So at the end of the day, it's up to you, but I'd say the vast majority of folks who have used them, are pretty happy.

Was it you who pulled the air line from the cup and added a dosing pump to add RO/DI water to the air tube to keep the venturi clean?

Not me. Never had a problem with the Venturi.

I dont have a problem either. just trying to raise the PH in the tank by adding fresh air to the skimmer.

Not wanting to go back thru the Main Lifereef thread to find out who did. I read it in there somewhere.
Looking for the drip rate per hour for the dosing pump

I run some of my top off water into the mazzie intake. Never had a problem with the mazzie clogging. More to keep the air line clean.


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You could also detach the airline from the cup and submerge the hose into some hot RO/DI water once or twice a week