I started my tank in March of 2017. When cycling the tank I had a Reef Octopus HOB skimmer. It worked pretty well, but I got tired of having to constantly adjust the intake due to evaporation. I did not have an ATO nor sump at the time. Once I obtained my sump, I spoke to the owner of my LFS about a suitable internal skimmer for the setup. He suggested the Bubble Magus Curve A5. The price point was within my budget so I purchased the skimmer and placed it in my pump.
Like many others out there I experienced constant overflows for almost 6 weeks. I had to elevate the skimmer in my sump to get half-decent operation. As it finally broke in, I was able to lower it in the sump. A few weeks ago, I disassembled the skimmer and gave it a good cleaning. When I reassembled the skimmer and put it back into the sump I had a terrible case of micro bubbles that I had not seen since putting the skimmer in the sump the first time. 2 weeks passed and it had not settled down. This may not be an issue for some, but I have cleaned the skimmer multiple times over the last year and never had micro bubbles reappear.
I shopped around and read everything I could find on internal skimmers to fit my sump and water volume of 85 gallons or so. There were good and bad reviews of nearly every brand out there. How does one decide which brand/model to buy? I finally settled on the Simplicity 240DC. It is a little overkill for the bio-load currently in my tank, but man this thing went to work within about 2 hours of being in the sump. It has now been in the sump for 2.5 weeks. I have not started to tinker with the adjustments yet, but this thing is pulling some extremely dark skimmate from the tank. It is darker than anything that I every got with the Bubble Magus. So far I am extremely happy with this purchase!
Like many others out there I experienced constant overflows for almost 6 weeks. I had to elevate the skimmer in my sump to get half-decent operation. As it finally broke in, I was able to lower it in the sump. A few weeks ago, I disassembled the skimmer and gave it a good cleaning. When I reassembled the skimmer and put it back into the sump I had a terrible case of micro bubbles that I had not seen since putting the skimmer in the sump the first time. 2 weeks passed and it had not settled down. This may not be an issue for some, but I have cleaned the skimmer multiple times over the last year and never had micro bubbles reappear.
I shopped around and read everything I could find on internal skimmers to fit my sump and water volume of 85 gallons or so. There were good and bad reviews of nearly every brand out there. How does one decide which brand/model to buy? I finally settled on the Simplicity 240DC. It is a little overkill for the bio-load currently in my tank, but man this thing went to work within about 2 hours of being in the sump. It has now been in the sump for 2.5 weeks. I have not started to tinker with the adjustments yet, but this thing is pulling some extremely dark skimmate from the tank. It is darker than anything that I every got with the Bubble Magus. So far I am extremely happy with this purchase!
