Berlin Classic Skimmer Trick

[colin779]

I have the skimmer set up on my 90. I got it when a buddy gave me all the stuff from his setup he tore down. The thing has worked like garbage the last 4 months. He did the kent turbo venturi mod on it, but it still just didnt work well.

I finally got sick of it and sat down the other night and started tinkering with it. I made the discovery that if you take out the center acrylic tube (smallest one) the skimmer works great. Probably still not as great as something new, and someday i will upgrade it. But until then at least its serviceable now.

Just a little info if anyone is still tinkering with theirs.

 

[DTECH07]

Do you have or would take some photo's? Would love to see the mod.

 

[colin779]

I can take one in the morning for you =)

 

[colin779]

Crap, i forgot to post the picture, ill get it on here when i get home from work tonight, sorry.

 

[colin779]

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[DTECH07]

Sorry for the delay but man that looks like its working great.

 

[colin779]

It still requires frequent cleaning, but at least it produces now.

 

[DTECH07]

i'm going to set up a Silent & Fail-Safe Aquarium Overflow System and this helped me choose my Skimmer and a possible mod for it. Thanks

 

[Skimmy]

meh....
the only really good mod for this skimmer,
is the garbage can mod.
or the jimi hendrix lighter fluid mod...
that one works great as well.
please, ....friends dont let friends (not)skimm with berlin skimmers.

they do make a good ozone reactor though...

 

[Skimmy]

but seriously, about the best you can do with a berlin, is to add a pinwheel/asperating venturi pump to it,
but the limiting factor is the small neck size, and finding a good match of a pump might be tricky...
ultimately, your money is much better spent on another skimmer all together...
this is the cheapest, really good skimmer out there:
SWC150 BMK

 

[colin779]

Agreed, its not great, but it is functional. The turbo venturi that was already on the one i got seems to help. I just have a 500gph pump attached to it. The thing that i noticed like my original post said was that the small center tube significantly reduced the amount of water that the bubbles were contacting. My 90 isn't to heavily stocked (2 clowns, hippo tang, and sixline wrasse) but i still get steady collection out of it. So if you have a spare pump laying around and don't have the cash to drop $200 on a skimmer (i opted to spend the money on my r/o system at this time) this is a good option, especially since it seems people are basically giving these away... Glad it helped you out DTECH07 =)

Eventually i will upgrade my skimmer, how is the swc150? is that what you are running currently Skimmy?