I have seen them last 3 mths. I have also seen them last less than that. I own a coralife 29g biocube as well and I used the aquaticlife 115 skimmer on mine in the 1st chamber. It works really well for the price. The coralife skimmers I have read are not very good, but I never used one so can't give personal exp. A friend replaced his every 2 mths because that's when he noticed the performance started to degrade from there.