Reef octopus nwb110 & Bubble Blaster Pump

Stemick · Jul 9, 2014

On a local forum a fellow reefer had a Reef Octopus NWB-110 skimmer with an Aquatrance AQ-1000s pump and aother fellow reefer lived closed to the other guy with the skimmer had a barely used Bubble Blaster HY-1000s Skimmer Pump for sale. CoralVue says this pump is an upgrade pumps. Which would make this skimmer to be almost like the SRO-1000INT Skimmer. But it was 4 hrs away one way. I don't really want to ship it cause I just had some bad luck with shipping a skimmer. I would of went and pick it up myself(excuse to check out some nice reef stores in the area) But I'm deployed. But I was lucky and my wife was headed that way to pick a friend up from the airport before heading to my daughters National Dance Computation. I was able to talk her into stopping on her way and picking up both of these up.

My wife was able to pick both of these up and now it time to do the rest of my homework on this. The real world experience. Has anyone replaced the pump on there RO NWB-110 with the Bubble blaster pump. CoralVue Says it should mounts right up to the skimmer. How much trouble was it to mount up to the skimmer, How deep did you run it, and how hard was it to turn it in.

Some of you might think why would you buy before doing the rest of your homework. Cause if worse comes to worse then I can put the old pump back on the skimmer that came with it in the first place back on it, which is on upgrade from the skimmer I have now and I have seen good reviews in it. If I have to do that I'm sure someone needs a Bubble Blaster Pump. Second if there is not people out there willing to try newer recommended stuff then how do we know how well it really works. Then we can pass good or bad reviews on. But I hope others have done this to get me started on the right foot. Thanks for any info or experience you may have.

I will be home sometime next month so I should be able to get this wet next month. I will also update on what the out come is for anyone that is thinking about upgrading there pump. I might even start with the original pump then upgrade to the bubble blaster to compare the results.

Stemick · Aug 22, 2014

I have had the Reef Octopus NWB 110 going for about a week and a half now. I was going to start out with the pump that come with it from Reef Octopus. But I came home from deployment to a Huge Red Cyno Out break. So I just went straight to the Bubble Blaster pump. I have it in about 4 1/2" of water with the gate valve wide open and it's skimming a little wet. I might get the skimmer neck extension to see if I can get a little more control out of it. I did notice if I put it any deeper then 5" then it goes nuts and fills the cup.

Stemick · Sep 5, 2014

I have had the skimmer running for a couple weeks now. When it is tuned in and skims right it does an amazing job. When I do a water change or change out the filter sock it goes nuts. I learn to just take the valve off all the way for a day then slip it back on and it's right back to skimming . I'm thinking about buy the neck extension to try and get more control. I have the valve all the way open.

Stemick · Dec 18, 2014

I have not update this for a little bit. So I thought I would give an update. I had the bubble blaster pump on there and till about 2 weeks ago. I switch back to the original pump that came with it that reef octopus put on it from factor. With the bubble blaster it always seem random and not very stable. I think if I put a neck extension it would have been more controllable. I would get it dialed in and then it would last a day then out of the blue go nuts and over flow the cup with water. But now that I have the original pump on it seem to be skimming regularly without being so uncontrollable. My have has not had to adjust it once since have been gone. Heres a pic of it skimming after a couple days of skimming with the original pump.