To my surprise, around 4:00pm, less than 48 hours after I had ordered it, this non-descript brown box showed up on my doorstep.
A quick unboxing had an instruction card (whcih was just north of being completely useless) and all of the parts neatly packed in a foam box.
Using the picture from the Mode Aquariums Website for comparison, here is the "old" version and i will point out as many differences that I can find between what is shown and what was delivered to both myself and Toddah.
First, the version I received appears to have a different pump, OR... it's a red version of the same pump. (Pretty sure its i a completely different pump) As you can see from the picture, the pump is not threaded and is just friction fit into the bottom of the skimmer. I was a litle concerned at first, but the fit is nice an snug and I got over it.
Next, the skimmer cup has been redesigned and is where the majority of the new features/changes come into play.
Now, the collection cup has an integrated silencer ibuilt into the cup. As you can see, there are two ports on the bottom of the cup. The large one on the left is the drain which comes WITHOUT a plug (more on that later) The smaller port on the right side of the bottom of the cup is the built-in air silencer. The old version had a silencer as a separate attachment. I kind of like this change, as you dont have that old dongle flapping around (and we all know how painful THAT can be! - Badda-BING!)
The next picture shows some sort of adjustable air inlet on the collection cup lid, with no notification on how it is to be used. Will need to fiddle a bit to figure it out.
The next difference is that the collection cup does not have a stopper plug on the bottom drain, but it does come wit an ~9" length of hose and a faucet style end piece. It would have been nice if they had incleded a propper stopper for the cup as well, but I kind of like this change in general.
Pictures of the collection cup neck and collection cup flanges. Not sure if the older version. had these or not. I was under the impression that they were just friction fit, but I could be wrong.
Here it is in my tank, moments after giving it power. It is hard to see, but below the collection cup junction, there are lots of bubbles.
As i write this, i realize that I negelcted to take a picture of the unit fully assembled. (See Toddah's post linked on the post above if tyou want to see more pictures)
What has not changed from the previous version is the high quality, sturdy plastic. (It seems quite solid) and the ports on the bottom. to control wather flow and the air bubbles. As in the previous version, twisting the skimmer body while it is hanging on the tank allwos you to open and close the ports on the bottome of the skimmer to increase or decrease the flow, raising and lowerig how far up the neck the bubbles travel.
When I had seen Toddah's post, I had originally though this was a completely differewnt skimmer. I don''t believe that to be the case. I think it is still teh same skimmer, but with a couple of tweaks or "itterations" if you will... This might also help explain why they were hard to get for a while. Different parts and retooling held up by global shipping and supply chain issues? Just a guess?
All I can say is that if you are looking at getting one, they seem to be readily available and my turn-around time was about as fast as one could expet. I am VERY pleased so far.
Regardless, hope to get it dialed in and get some thick, nasty, skimmate going.
www.aliexpress.com
