Life Reef VS-24

[pandora32]

I have a lifereef VS=24 skimmer. I am curious about what ya'll think about it.
Skimmy, I have been reading your responses in this forum. You seem well respected and seem to know bout skimmers.
I have a 215g oceanic display with 3 sided starfire glass and dual 600 gph overflows going into a ADHI sump totaling out to 261.5g overall. I have the above mentiond skimmer with a odysea WP-1000 pump, too big I know.
I am VERY curious what you would suggest for a skimmer. It does have to be an in-sump type of skimmer and I only have " of space inside my stand from the very bottom, so if it needs to be elevated 6"-10", please take this into account.
I am looking for something that can handle a large bio-load.
I am asking this of you because I am looking to replace my skimmer VERY soon.

 

[Maxx]

I've been speaking with Mark regarding skimmers lately myself. I'm sure he'll be along shortly to clarify, but he told me he likes to see 600 liters per hour of air flow per 100 gallons of display. So with that criteria in mind, you would need something with about 1500-1600 lph of airflow.

I'm not familiar with Life reef so I looked them up and figured you have either a VS3-24 or a VS2-24. Both are rated for a 250 gallon tank.

How much space do you have available for a skimmer?

Nick

 

[Maxx]

I've just recently added onto my system and now the total syswtem volume is about 250 gallons. Mark, (Skimmy) suggested these two skimmers for my needs:

SWC 300 Cone

CV-SRO-5000INT Premium Aquatics - CV-SRO-5000INT Aquarium Supplies

I have a limited amount of space to use for my system as well, so unfortunately, the first one probably wont work for me. But doing some rough math, it appears that the SWC pulls aywhere from 25-30% more air than the Reef Octopus.

Nick

 

[Skimmy]

well, as max touched upon, 600lph air injection for every 100g of display tank is the general rule of thumb,
and yes, 1500lph would do nicely...
the life reef skimmers are a post pump venturi skimmer that is decent but a bit underpowered IMO compared to even budget modern skimmers.
i think you should look for something with a pinwheel impeller and asperating venturi, as well as a nicely designed bubble plate. cone would be good, but cylinders are still great too, and several that are a bit of both.
here are a few to ponder in your quest for fodder reduction...

http://premiumaquatics.com/aquatic-supplies/CV-SRO-5000INT.html
SWC 230 Cone
SWC 300 Cone
SKIMZ SK 251 KONE E SERIES - IN-SUMP PROTEIN SKIMMER - AquaCave
http://www.reefspecialty.com/virtue...506-atb-elegance-200-pro-protein-skimmer.html

also, maxx, the skimz and atb posted above would be great for your systems too if you wanted other contenders with the swc and octo.

 

[Maxx]

Hey Mark,

Thanks for posting all that up. Never heard of the Skimz Kone E Series. That thing seems to draw monster air and its very compact. But I notice that the "Space saver" style skimmers (pump inside the body, under the bubble plate) seem to have less internal room for the air & water to mix. I'm guessing this means you have a shorter dwell time with these skimmers? If thats the case, I would assume these skimmers are less efficient at protein removal than their non "space saver" design counterparts, (pump outside body, more room in chamber)?

I realize you cant get something for nothing and in saving space in the footprint, you give up vertical space....

But from what I've seen based on what the information you've provided me with, the Super Reef Octopus 5000 Internal seems to be the best bang for the buck.

Nick

 

[Skimmy]

honestly, i personally dont put too much stock in the old escobal numbers.. to me the proof is in the pudding,
or the skimmate in this case... either your tank is clean and healthy or it isnt.

 

[mojoreef]

honestly, i personally dont put too much stock in the old escobal numbers..

Yea I hate it when the science gets in the way to..hehehe

For all those wanting to do a comparison of the newer expensive skimmers Ken did a pretty in depth study on them. Its always a good idea to know what your skimming.


Feature Article: Further Studies on Protein Skimmer Performance — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

Mojo

 

[Maxx]

Mike, interesting article. I'd read the previous one in 09, but hadnt seen this one. ALOT,(okay most), of the math in that article was way over my head,(I'm no rocket surgeon), but the main points I was able to pull from that article were:

1...only about 35% of the measurable organics in our tanks can be removed.

2...all the skimmers tested will (eventually) remove that 35%.

3...a Precision Marine venturi skimmer, (the least expensive and one of the most power hungry ie, energy INefficient) was the fastest to remove that 35%.

So how does that fit it into our search for a good skimmer? If all skimmers eventually hit the 35% removal point, and it appears that we pay more for how fast we remove that 35%, does it really matter what skimmer we buy?

Nick

 

[mojoreef]

Well I guess different folks will take different things from it. What alot of folks think is that say the numbers (math) from this study or say those evil ancient Escobar numbers arty: are some kind of line in the sand, they arent. Line in the sand is biology and chemistry, the math just gives us a way to see where we stand. So an example: if we know that we have a protien chain coming into the skimmer, and part of it is phobic and part is philic we know that it will take a certain enviroment to capture it, also that it will take a certain amount of time to bombard it to break the chains bond to water, also an amount of time to allow surficants to form first (as some protiens or aprts of them will not attach to air bubbles) so then the protien can attach to them. The math lets us know we have given that process enough to do that.

So if you look at the study this is what I noticed, the top performing skimmer, regardless of price had the slowest flow through it, the second was recirc, third was an airstone. So perhaps the numbers do matter?? As this test and many others have demostrated is that the current skimmers on the market are not really designed to deal with dissolved organics, they instead concentrate on just making foam, this then leads to the skimmer pulling out anything and everything that gets caught up in the foam column. Now that can be ok if thats what you want, me personally I like the fact that everything (bacteria, free floating algae, zooplankton and similar) gets pulled out, but for those that feed their corals and such it might be a bit of a waste. The thing that I really dont like is the fact that they only get 35% removal of TOC's for some pretty good money.

Anyway different strokes for different folks. To me the study shows me that these skimmer arent that effective at removing dissolve organics, regardless of price so go with the cheapest one and perhaps mod it to make it actually be skimming protiens??


Mojo

 

[Maxx]

Okay, so how do we mod a skimmer so that it removes proteins......like I would assume a PROTEIN skimmer should be doing?

Nick

 

[mojoreef]

Well were kind of working on that in the DIY forum. But I would imagine every skimmer would be different in its application.


Mojo

 

[Skimmy]

dear god this is approaching retardation IMO,
another flawed test that really doesnt prove much because people apparantly dont understand scientifiic research.

who ever actually believed that skimmers will remove everything??
who actually runs a stable/sucessfull reef with only skimmers as filtration??

and who would do a skimmer test that included GAC in the test water???
furthermore, GAC that didnt get changed out for 1 month... so of course toc's are going to rise..
another cheesy attempt to do research.

people, this is simple...
do water changes, use carbon, use a refugium, use a skimmer, and manually remove detritus and left over wastes.

all the bells and whistles with equipment are great, but nothing, i mean NOTHING can replace daily proper husbandry,
which is YOU!!! so give your reef youir daily attention and use some elbow grease, and stop whining how equipment wont save the universe.

 

[mojoreef]

Easy big fella, a little harsh on Ken he is a proffessor of chemistry at Penn State that specializes in organic synthesis.

and who would do a skimmer test that included GAC in the test water???
furthermore, GAC that didnt get changed out for 1 month... so of course toc's are going to rise..
another cheesy attempt to do research.

What he did Skimmy was that he turned off the tanks skimmer and gac filter, then feed the tank heavy, then took the water samples from the tank for testing. So I dont think it really has anything to do with it??

all the bells and whistles with equipment are great, but nothing, i mean NOTHING can replace daily proper husbandry,
which is YOU!!! so give your reef youir daily attention and use some elbow grease, and stop whining how equipment wont save the universe.

And this makes the most sence to me, but when folks begin to look for a skimmer (which are pretty expensive outlay these days) and they look at the lines of skimmers being offered, then here all the hype, claims, recommendations and so on it does tend to muddy the waters no?? (and I am not saying you are doing that, just in general) I can not tell you haw many emails/pm's/phone calls I get from folks that have laid out 5, 6, 7 and up dollars on skimmers that are not having the effect they should, specially for that kind of money.

Anyway

mojo

 

[Skimmy]

yep, sorry... i'll try to calm down....
it's not any particular scientist/phd chemist im trying to pick on...
i feel that all of this actually starts with cosemology, "the queen of sciences",
fundamental mistakes made in cosemology have trickled all the way down the sciences
all the way to biology and history, IMO, and the opinion of many many other doctors, phd's,
and physicists, so that basically most ALL of the sciences are working of fundamentally flawed
interpetations and views of whole systems. this means that basically alot of scientific theory is false, based upon
"magic" dreamed up by mathemeticians, NOT real observations in the universe.
so when i see this "limited whole system view" applied to research, and research that is imperfect, no less,
it starts to annoy the heck out of me. I mean great, lets search for the best skimmer design out there,
i dont really care what it is.. i dont sell skimmers anymore, and i never had any desire to favor one type of skimmer over another
for any other reason other than personal experience with that skimmer,
and viewable results in the whole system that i observed myself.
also, i have to admit to being really kind of annoyed with AA,
with this whole skimmer thing, and now the whole tunze debacle they have started.
i pretty much take ANYTHING they say with several grains of salt, because the whole thing smells like a bunch of shill bs to me.

anyway, so now that we've derailed this poor mans skimmer Q thread thoroughly,
if anyone cares to look at it, here's a video on cosemology to further explain what i cant, since i am personally no scientist. .
koraltek777's Channel - YouTube

oh, and fwiw, i like the PM skimmer model they use in the test, even though they are a normal venturi skimmer.
I always thought they worked great. and im pretty sure they still sell that model. prolly perfect for anything up to a 100g.
i know that most they sell now are becketts and a newer chinese made import with red accents
that might as well be an octopus skimmer(same OTP pump).

 

[Skimmy]

And this makes the most sence to me, but when folks begin to look for a skimmer (which are pretty expensive outlay these days) and they look at the lines of skimmers being offered, then here all the hype, claims, recommendations and so on it does tend to muddy the waters no?? (and I am not saying you are doing that, just in general) I can not tell you haw many emails/pm's/phone calls I get from folks that have laid out 5, 6, 7 and up dollars on skimmers that are not having the effect they should, specially for that kind of money.

Anyway

mojo

I agree fully, and this is why i usually am always recommending skimmers that dont break the bank,
because I dont think they are worth it, at least when compared to the power and design features offered on the less expensive skimmers out there.

the way i feel you should look at skimmers is the same as buying a computer...
it's going to be comparably obsolete 6-9 month in to ownership, but,
if you bought something that will do the job you bought it to, and you combined it with other forms of filtration,
your probably going to be good for a fairly long time. ultimately the difference between a good and bad skimmer is that YOU will be working more,
and that factor should be blatantly apparant to any aquarist enough so for them to make a decent decision on if their skimmer is functioning properly or not, and if they have alot of experience with other skimmers, it would hopefully enable them to make decent recommendations that would be probably as good as any scientific data.

 

[mojoreef]

the way i feel you should look at skimmers is the same as buying a computer...
it's going to be comparably obsolete 6-9 month in to ownership, but,

Yea, but for me I look at it in the opposite way. I think the plot was lost on skimmers, they went from simple protien type skimmers to foam makers, now its more of which foam maker uses the least ammount of power. Somewhere down the line the concept was lost, anyway just an opinion.


Mojo

 

[pandora32]

:dance:I know we need a chemistry set for our litle oceans for them to be healthy and all, but now we need a college degree in air injection systems too!!! LOL...joke.

Ok, so life reef says to use a pump with at most someting like 900 gph. I have about a 1 - 1 1/2 feet head from my pump. So I was thinkin of maybe getting a mag 12 pump with a pinwheel impellar. I am still pretty new to this skmmer stuff, hell, my last skimmer was a seaclone...lol

What do you guys think of this? Try a different pump?

I dont think my skimmer is producing what I think it should be. Id like to get the dark skimmate, and I cant seem to get it.

 

[Skimmy]

you dont want a pinwheel impeller with a post pump venturi skimmer...
you have to do one or the other...
you would prolly be better off just using a 1000gph pump or a mag 12 with a valve to adjust the flow back a hair.
but if you take some pics of your skimmer, i could suggest an appropriate pinwheel pump, then we would have to just remove the venturi from the skimmer

 

[pandora32]

Ok. I have been tryingto get some pictures of my system to post. I will try and get some of the skimmer as well.
I do really appreciate all info you all have given me! Thank you THANK YOU!
A tiny bit more info. I have a TOTAL of 32" from the bottom of my sump to the top of the interior of my stand. TOTAL as in no way to take a cup off or anythng. I would also like to keep the price not much higher than $450. Im not broke, but I dont have a large wad of cash to thow at it. Wish I did!

 

[pandora32]

Man I have such a crappy camera. I cant get a decent picture of my tank. As for pictures of my skimmer, I need to clean it today/tomorrow, so I will take a few when I get it out.