Calling all Bubble King Skimmer owners

Monroereef · Mar 20, 2018

Looking for a new skimmer for my 600G tank. The total water volume will be around 800G.

I am looking at

Bubble King® Supermarin 250 + RD3 Speedy

Anyone has one? What are your thoughts? Is it a good choice for a 800G system?

Thanks

Sunny

gcarroll · Mar 20, 2018

It is rated for 260g to 800g. I guess it depends how much you want to rely on the skimmer as your primary type of filtration. I have a friend with a beautiful sps system that swears by his BK Supermarin 300. But with a masive fish load he needs every bit of it's skimming power. Over the years I have seen people with skimmers I considered too small and others with skimmers too big. They were all successful. It just depended what their complete goals were for filtration.

Oldreefer44 · Mar 20, 2018

Had Bubble King for years. Pretty much set up and forget except for cleaning which is also easier than most.

AiKkz · Mar 20, 2018

I will have my 250 deluxe up and running in the next couple months when my new tank comes, so if you got some time i'll deff let you know!

Monroereef · Mar 20, 2018

Thanks all who replied so far. My main concern is how accurate is their rating? I know reef octopus rates "upto" certain gallon with light load. No one has light load in this hobby

. So if they say it is rated for 800G does that mean fully stocked? If yes than I am good.

What size tank you have it running on?

AiKkz · Mar 20, 2018

mine will be for a 300g DT and its rated for up to 550 gallons.

Potatohead · Mar 20, 2018

In that much water I would go up to the 300+

AiKkz · Mar 20, 2018

got too good of a deal on the 250 to pass it up. plus i'll have a large fuge to help out.

Reefinny · Mar 20, 2018

Sonny I run a bubble king ext 300, best skimmer I ever had. Hands down.

crayon · Mar 20, 2018

We run a 180 Double Cone on one system, a 250 SuperMarin on our qt system and a 250 Deluxe on our main system.
Of the three, I prefer the Deluxe. It is easier to dial in, way better to maintain a skim head inside the cup and doesn’t go ballistic as often as the supermarin does when I feed.
The Deluxe is currently running on a 250 gallon system so I think if you’re contemplating a system that is close to 800 gallons (which is over 3000 litres) you may want to go larger.
We are planning a system upgrade in our new place and will have a 800 gallon system and our skimmer will be the Deluxe 400 I hope.

Monroereef · Mar 20, 2018

crayon said:
We run a 180 Double Cone on one system, a 250 SuperMarin on our qt system and a 250 Deluxe on our main system.
Of the three, I prefer the Deluxe. It is easier to dial in, way better to maintain a skim head inside the cup and doesn’t go ballistic as often as the supermarin does when I feed.
The Deluxe is currently running on a 250 gallon system so I think if you’re contemplating a system that is close to 800 gallons (which is over 3000 litres) you may want to go larger.
We are planning a system upgrade in our new place and will have a 800 gallon system and our skimmer will be the Deluxe 400 I hope.

The deluxe 400 is rated for upto 1100 gallons and so is the supermarine 300. The price is almost double for deluxe? What is the real difference?

Monroereef · Mar 20, 2018

Reefinny said:
Sonny I run a bubble king ext 300, best skimmer I ever had. Hands down.

What is the water volume?

trido · Mar 20, 2018

I have a first Gen BK 250 on my 450 gallon system. Its heavily stocked, with both corals and fish (25-30). I run ozone, filtersocks and the display tank gets fed 6-8 times a day. I dont think it could handle much more...

hatfielj · Mar 20, 2018

Monroereef said:
Looking for a new skimmer for my 600G tank. The total water volume will be around 800G.

I am looking at

Bubble King® Supermarin 250 + RD3 Speedy

Anyone has one? What are your thoughts? Is it a good choice for a 800G system?

Thanks

Sunny

I have the SM 200 with the RD3 pump on my 240 gallon system. It's more skimmer than I need for sure. I would think the SM250 could easily handle a tank that size. BK's estimates on tank size are kind of conservative in my opinion.

Reefinny · Mar 20, 2018

Monroereef said:
What is the water volume?

Royal Exclusiv Bubble King DeLuxe 300 External Protein Skimmer - for aquariums from 1,200 liter - 3,000 liters (317 - 792 Gallons)

I am running about 350 now very heavily stocked and will be close to 500 with my upgrade.

AiKkz · Mar 21, 2018

crayon said:
We run a 180 Double Cone on one system, a 250 SuperMarin on our qt system and a 250 Deluxe on our main system.
Of the three, I prefer the Deluxe. It is easier to dial in, way better to maintain a skim head inside the cup and doesn’t go ballistic as often as the supermarin does when I feed.
The Deluxe is currently running on a 250 gallon system so I think if you’re contemplating a system that is close to 800 gallons (which is over 3000 litres) you may want to go larger.
We are planning a system upgrade in our new place and will have a 800 gallon system and our skimmer will be the Deluxe 400 I hope.

What size is ur main system that the 250 runs?

crayon · Mar 21, 2018

AiKkz said:
What size is ur main system that the 250 runs?

The 250 Deluxe ran for 5 years on our main system which was over 250 gallons total volume. It was a well sized skimmer for this system as we ran wet and had a fish population close to 40 (some really small fish as this was a three tank system plumbed to one sump). The skimmer very seldom gave us problems.
I would say we cleaned the pump probably every six months or so. Our return pump on the system was a RD80.
In terms of using the SuperMarin 300 on a system around 800 gallons, really not sure how it could handle that size or water flow. I see on the website they say it is rated for 4000 l so guess it could.
I was planning on giving Scott at Royal Exclusiv US a call to discuss skimmers, so maybe I will ask him. All I can say about the 250 SuperMarin is that we have used one for the last year on our temporary set up and I hate it. Every week I’m cleaning up the top of the sump because the skimmer has puked and overflowed and every week I’m trying to adjust the pump speed or the water volume in the skimmer to get it to skim wet. It’s just fussy.

AiKkz · Mar 21, 2018

crayon said:
The 250 Deluxe ran for 5 years on our main system which was over 250 gallons total volume. It was a well sized skimmer for this system as we ran wet and had a fish population close to 40 (some really small fish as this was a three tank system plumbed to one sump). The skimmer very seldom gave us problems.
I would say we cleaned the pump probably every six months or so. Our return pump on the system was a RD80.
In terms of using the SuperMarin 300 on a system around 800 gallons, really not sure how it could handle that size or water flow. I see on the website they say it is rated for 4000 l so guess it could.
I was planning on giving Scott at Royal Exclusiv US a call to discuss skimmers, so maybe I will ask him. All I can say about the 250 SuperMarin is that we have used one for the last year on our temporary set up and I hate it. Every week I’m cleaning up the top of the sump because the skimmer has puked and overflowed and every week I’m trying to adjust the pump speed or the water volume in the skimmer to get it to skim wet. It’s just fussy.

I plan on running my 250 deluxe internal on my 300 gallon display, which should be more then capable of running that system being their specs are under rated.

debby · Mar 21, 2018

I am using lifereef Venturi skimmer. Best product in the skimmer world I've owned. be patient and read thru the massive amount of information on his site.

http://www.lifereef.com/

Debby

Monroereef · Mar 21, 2018

debby said:
I am using lifereef Venturi skimmer. Best product in the skimmer world I've owned. be patient and read thru the massive amount of information on his site.

http://www.lifereef.com/

Debby

Thanks @debby but it is not relevant to me.