Well, I didn't think it was possible, but I managed to get my Reef Octopus 200-INT out of my sump. After Avogadro's number of twists, turns, partial disassembly, and 4-letter words, the skimmer body came out of the sump.
Last October when I put the skimmer in, it seem painfully obvious to me that only the skimmer cup and pump could be removed and cleaned...the remainder of the body would have to stay in the sump. You can imagine how nasty the skimmer body got over that time. I finally decided today to try to remove the body for a good cleaning.
The thing about the 200-INT skimmer is that the internals are not removable :( The bubble plate and weir are welded to the acrylic body, so that was about 3 metric tons of detritus and unidentifiable goo in that space below the bubble plate (by the way, I think I have recreated how ancient life started on Earth!). No amount of washing would clean it up, so I got a tote and some chlorox and made a bath for that part of the skimmer.
And, along the way, I found the lone Asterina star fish that had gone missing in my sump over the last year :) We'll see how this beast performs when it is all clean and reassembled!
Last October when I put the skimmer in, it seem painfully obvious to me that only the skimmer cup and pump could be removed and cleaned...the remainder of the body would have to stay in the sump. You can imagine how nasty the skimmer body got over that time. I finally decided today to try to remove the body for a good cleaning.
The thing about the 200-INT skimmer is that the internals are not removable :( The bubble plate and weir are welded to the acrylic body, so that was about 3 metric tons of detritus and unidentifiable goo in that space below the bubble plate (by the way, I think I have recreated how ancient life started on Earth!). No amount of washing would clean it up, so I got a tote and some chlorox and made a bath for that part of the skimmer.
And, along the way, I found the lone Asterina star fish that had gone missing in my sump over the last year :) We'll see how this beast performs when it is all clean and reassembled!