What's your absolute favorite skimmer?

[4FordFamily]

Anything ASM. I’ve had sscserak G4, G4++, and I just bought a G6 or bigger now I forget.... for my eventual wall tank build.

Economical, simple, effective.

 

[Dramad1]

Kz rev series has worked.the best out of all skimmers I have owned. Deltec has to be second.
I've never owned a bubble king

 

[Jamie7907]

I’ve had asm, aqua medic, corallife, eshopps, lifereef, reef Octo, tunze, icecap, vertex and nyos. My favorites are the vertex and nyos, they worked the best, pulled the most gunk and are the quietest of all of them. Aquamedic was the worst, so bad I threw it away instead of selling it or giving it away. The others are all ok but I wouldn’t waste my money on any of them again. Currently I’m running a nyos 300 on my 600 and a nyos 220 on my 180, with a vertex alpha as backup for each. The vertex are actually quieter but the air adjustment is underwater, easy to change but I’m lazy.

 

[Sallstrom]

The Deltec series with Eheim pumps, I think there where called AP, are IMO great skimmers. Easy to disassamble and pumps that can go on for 20 years
We still run 4 Deltec AP skimmers in different sizes at work, they where purchased back in 2005. Most of the Eheim pumps are original, some has new impellers.

 

[Servillius]

This thing just keeps going and going. Hard to beat. Bubble King Mini 180

Bonus points to Tunze though. Very nice and very compact!

 

[Whipples]

This is my 24" Lifereef on a 100g tank with about 9 fish and several inverts. Every other week or so I just turn the drain knob on the lower left into a jug and dump. I only clean the neck and cup when I remember to, which is nearly never. I can only recall cleaning it once so far.

 

[User1]

Life Reef user here. 2000 is when I bought it originally for a 100 gallon tank with room to handle a future upgrade. Few things happened here and there and that tank ended up coming down and moved into a pair of 29 gallon bio cubes. Skimmer was put in a box and stored for a couple years until I pulled it out recently and fired it back up on a 210 gallon upgrade. Still running great like new. Prior to installing it back in April I called Jeff and asked if he made any changes or if there is a reason to upgrade. Answer was nope - will perform like those he has now and said save the money. Cool - bought a sump from him the next day.

I also have a CPR Bak Pak that we used to run on a 20 gallon tank. It is now serving the future QT tank. Great little skimmer. But Life Reef is our favorite here in our house. Previous skimmer was a ETSS which while worked ok it was a pain to adjust and something you always had to fiddle with. Thus the purchase of the Life Reef originally.

Edit: My Life Reef is powered by a Cor 15.

 

[pjr]

here's the cool thing about the Tunze.... in reality, the neck comes off with the cup. Look at both pics to see that benefit:

First pic is 6 or 7 of collection...nothing initially impressive until the second pic, which is a quick swipe of thick juicy paste that came from the inner neck portion of the cup. Nasty smelly thick paste!

 

[Koigula]

I have had 3 skimmers. Here is the order I purchased them in.

1st skimmer - Euroreef - Bubble wheel on exit side of pump and stand pipe configuration to tank return. Impeller worn some but great results. I had top 5 review on ReefCentral for a long time.

2nd skimmer - BubbleKing Mini 200 - Re branded Laguna pump burned out twice forcing me to find OEM as customer service was a disgrace. Extremely uniform bubble size and bit of a pain to service. Thin acrylic materials. Performance was good. Pump burnt out to due to basic engineering no-no of cavitating or restricting inlet to the pump

3rd skimmer - 36" Life Reef with Mazzei, Excellent material quality, set and forget for wet skimming. Accepts a wide variety of pumps. I modded to couple tubing to pump with silicone to reduce vibration. Mazzei injector is turbulent and has extreme variation in bubble size. It has performance and not the compact Eu wow factor of today.

In rating of cost and performance it is easily Life Reef, Euroreef and lastly Bubble King. Sorry fans but the bubble plate is a stupid design.

 

[Rory]

I run the ASM G3 on my 90 gallon... couldn't be happier! the selling point for me it you don't have to mess around with the water depth and putting it on platforms, etc. It runs in just about any water level. The pump is louder than my old Reef Octopus, I may see if I can come up with a new quieter pump for it.

 

[kennytze]

My Royal Exclusiv Supermarin 200

 

[BluewaterLa]

Reef Octopus Classic 202s and Reef Octopus Elite 220 sss.
both really great skimmers and hands down my favorite brand for the quality, performance and price.

Deltec would be my only other choice.

 

[DHill6]

Nyos Quantum both 120 and 160, easy to set, pulls out gunk, very quiet and they look nice. Added bonus they come completely apart for cleaning.

 

[MSB123]

Anything ASM. I’ve had sscserak G4, G4++, and I just bought a G6 or bigger now I forget.... for my eventual wall tank build.

Economical, simple, effective.

Sorry for bringing this back up, but how is the G6?

 

[JCOLE]

Reef Octopus - Too many models. All great!! Love em all. I am running the INT200 on my 150 and love it.

 

[Pntbll687]

I've had three skimmers on my tank

1) Simplicity?? It was nice, pretty quiet, but the pump died.
2) Coralife cone skimmer, rated for 300g tank. Worked well, but was very finicky, and I could never get the super thick foam
3) Eshopps Axium 220, this is currently on the tank and is miles ahead of the others. I adjusted it once after a week of break in time. Clean the cup once a week and everything is good.

 

[tnyr5]

The one I got for free lol.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I run 7 different old school reef octopus skimmers and love them. Simple design and they just work for me. I have a nyos on one tank, it performs well also.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Aside from the beach..... I would say I don't have a favorite skimmer. Skimmers are like toilet paper.... I may have a preference when I go to the store, but I'll take whatever gets the job done....... and both are a dirty job....

 

[Oldreefer44]

Have had:
Bubble King
Vertex
Reef Octopus
Life Reef
Life Reef has been the best and t's not even close. Very simple design. Set it once and let it be.