The Scary Haloween tale of the elusive reef Skimmer

ash9965 · Oct 12, 2017

Its unbelievable when you really need something the most if its not meant to be ... obtaining it can be nearly impossible.

This story began about a month ago I purchased 3 new fish and admittedly over fed a few days just to get them off on the right track but hey I had my trusty old school SCA skimmer that was probably undersized for my system but for the past 2 years it had never let me down and always pulled out dark almost black skimate. It was my little workhorse and I new I could always count on it.

Unfortunately my trust was misplaced when I awoke one morning to find the pump was making a terrible noise and no longer working properly. I tried cleaning it , taking it apart and soaking in vinegar all to no avail. In hind site I should have looked at just ordering a replacement pump. Instead I just trashed it.

So I figured I would make the best out of a bad situation and use this opportunity to upgrade to some thing newer and more suitable to my aquarium . So I started researching online reviews and forums and being the cheap reefer that I am I wanted the best reviewed and least expensive skimmer I could find that offered the biggest bang for the buck. Being that I had success with the old school SCA I started in that direction first and ordered a new SCA 302 . Mind you all this time still overfeeding a bit and confident that my skimmer from Amazon would arrive in 2 days and all would be well.

Finally the SCA 302 arrived and bummer right out of the box the pump was a dud and not working properly - I was somewhat disappointed knowing this would add time on to everything. I had to box it up and return and it left a bad taste in my mouth so I decided to look in a different direction and went with the Simplicity 120 DC Skimmer . This time it took about 5 days to arrive . I was impressed with the new technology and man it was skimming black within a few hours right out of the box. unfortunately by day 2 it was rattling and the pump was no longer working properly talk about bummed I had to do the whole return thing again and tank was starting to grow some algae things were getting a little desperate but still manageable after all I would send this one back and order a new skimmer and hopefully in another few days all would be well.

Not so fast this time I ordered a bubble magus - it had great reviews and the price was right . After 5 days of waiting the box arrived and I excitedly opened it like a kid on Christmas morn only to have all my hopes dashed with a nice set of LED lights ??? What the heck I didn't order LED Lights? It was at this point I first started wondering if maybe God wants me to run a skim-less tank ?

OK so I called the company they apologized and said they would send me another skimmer one day air and they would email me a return label for the light and a tracking # for the new skimmer . I immediately received the return label but after another hour still hadn't received the tracking # for the new skimmer . I started getting the hebejebees so I called them back and was told we apologize sir but after reviewing your order the skimmer is on back order for 2 months. I explained this is unacceptable and I needed it asap. So they offered to upgrade me to a different model or brand for the same price. This time I chose the Reef OCTO Classic 150 and again they said they would 1 day air it to me. By the way this was last Thursday. I figured Columbus day might throw a wrench into things so I tried to be patient . By Monday afternoon I still haven't received the skimmer so again I called the company and after doing some research they found that the wrong address had been inputted and that the item had been returned to the UPS sorting facility. As I sat on the couch watching the algae grow before my eyes I thought wow this is a weird dream hopefully soon I will wake up to find my old school SCA undersized skimmer working fine as always and I would breathe a sigh of relief and have a laugh about it. Unfortunately not so much..... Anyways they corrected the address and at 7PM on Tuesday night the skimmer finally arrived . I immediately put it together and installed in sump . First impressions lots of bubble and doing what its supposed to do I am sure as it breaks in it will only get better . As for the tank I have started underfeeding and cutting back on lighting intensity and schedule until everything settles back down . Hind site is 20 - 20 and I don't think many reefers could afford to have a back up on everything - maybe a power head or pump but usually not a skimmer . However after everything that happened over the past month I am definitely considering it. Feel free to laugh but remember what comes around goes around.

I would love to hear some of your elusive reef items stories.

Crabs McJones · Oct 12, 2017

I have one!

And let me start it out by saying that Bulk Reef Supply was amazing at getting my situation handled and getting me taken care of.
I purchased an Ecotech Vortech MP10 from Bulk Reef Supply. This is the first time i'd ever used a pump like this before. The ones I had prior were older Hydor Koralia pumps. And while they worked, I wasn't happy with them. So I saved up my pennies and finally bought an MP10 (non wireless, I upgraded it to wireless myself later). When it came in, I installed it exactly as instructed, turned it on and the wetside was extremely noisy. So I called BRS and they said that it was common for the wetside to be noisy in the beginning as it breaks in and to give it a day to quiet down. So the next day I woke up to the pump being even noisier and spewing white chunks into the tank. Turns out that the ceramic shaft of the wet side was breaking off and going into my tank. So I called BRS and they promptly sent me a replacement and had me ship the old one back. All at no charge to me. So I got the new wet side, and everything worked great. Fast forward a month, I had saved up more pennies to get a second one for the other side of the tank (again the non wireless model). Ordered it (again from BRS) it came in, and I installed it as per the instructions. When this one turned on the dry side was vibrating and making a grinding noise, the controller would boot up, run for about 2 seconds, error out and reboot. Called BRS again and told them what was going on. They said that they'll send a new one and have me send the old one back. So I hang up. A couple hours later BRS calls me and says that they no longer have any of the non wireless models in stock so to get me taken care of they were sending out a wireless model. Which worked out perfectly as I had upgraded my other MP10 to the wireless model and had plans to do so with this one (I had RF modules already in my possession). So they sent me out the wireless model. Now this is where the story should end.....BUT, I got the new pump in, and this time the dry side was good, but the wet side was damaged either in shipping or from the facility. The ceramic shaft it rides on was flopping around in the box. So I called BRS again and they sent me out a new one and sent a return label for the old one. Finally got the new one in and everything else is history. Been running the MP10's now for almost a year and have not had a single problem with them.

XNavyDiver · Oct 12, 2017

ash9965 said:
Its unbelievable when you really need something the most if its not meant to be ... obtaining it can be nearly impossible.

This story began about a month ago I purchased 3 new fish and admittedly over fed a few days just to get them off on the right track but hey I had my trusty old school SCA skimmer that was probably undersized for my system but for the past 2 years it had never let me down and always pulled out dark almost black skimate. It was my little workhorse and I new I could always count on it.

Unfortunately my trust was misplaced when I awoke one morning to find the pump was making a terrible noise and no longer working properly. I tried cleaning it , taking it apart and soaking in vinegar all to no avail. In hind site I should have looked at just ordering a replacement pump. Instead I just trashed it.

So I figured I would make the best out of a bad situation and use this opportunity to upgrade to some thing newer and more suitable to my aquarium . So I started researching online reviews and forums and being the cheap reefer that I am I wanted the best reviewed and least expensive skimmer I could find that offered the biggest bang for the buck. Being that I had success with the old school SCA I started in that direction first and ordered a new SCA 302 . Mind you all this time still overfeeding a bit and confident that my skimmer from Amazon would arrive in 2 days and all would be well.

Finally the SCA 302 arrived and bummer right out of the box the pump was a dud and not working properly - I was somewhat disappointed knowing this would add time on to everything. I had to box it up and return and it left a bad taste in my mouth so I decided to look in a different direction and went with the Simplicity 120 DC Skimmer . This time it took about 5 days to arrive . I was impressed with the new technology and man it was skimming black within a few hours right out of the box. unfortunately by day 2 it was rattling and the pump was no longer working properly talk about bummed I had to do the whole return thing again and tank was starting to grow some algae things were getting a little desperate but still manageable after all I would send this one back and order a new skimmer and hopefully in another few days all would be well.

Not so fast this time I ordered a bubble magus - it had great reviews and the price was right . After 5 days of waiting the box arrived and I excitedly opened it like a kid on Christmas morn only to have all my hopes dashed with a nice set of LED lights ??? What the heck I didn't order LED Lights? It was at this point I first started wondering if maybe God wants me to run a skim-less tank ?

OK so I called the company they apologized and said they would send me another skimmer one day air and they would email me a return label for the light and a tracking # for the new skimmer . I immediately received the return label but after another hour still hadn't received the tracking # for the new skimmer . I started getting the hebejebees so I called them back and was told we apologize sir but after reviewing your order the skimmer is on back order for 2 months. I explained this is unacceptable and I needed it asap. So they offered to upgrade me to a different model or brand for the same price. This time I chose the Reef OCTO Classic 150 and again they said they would 1 day air it to me. By the way this was last Thursday. I figured Columbus day might throw a wrench into things so I tried to be patient . By Monday afternoon I still haven't received the skimmer so again I called the company and after doing some research they found that the wrong address had been inputted and that the item had been returned to the UPS sorting facility. As I sat on the couch watching the algae grow before my eyes I thought wow this is a weird dream hopefully soon I will wake up to find my old school SCA undersized skimmer working fine as always and I would breathe a sigh of relief and have a laugh about it. Unfortunately not so much..... Anyways they corrected the address and at 7PM on Tuesday night the skimmer finally arrived . I immediately put it together and installed in sump . First impressions lots of bubble and doing what its supposed to do I am sure as it breaks in it will only get better . As for the tank I have started underfeeding and cutting back on lighting intensity and schedule until everything settles back down . Hind site is 20 - 20 and I don't think many reefers could afford to have a back up on everything - maybe a power head or pump but usually not a skimmer . However after everything that happened over the past month I am definitely considering it. Feel free to laugh but remember what comes around goes around.

I would love to hear some of your elusive reef items stories.

The Hebejebees are a symptom of Brain Fog cause by AntsinthePants Syndrom. I would prescribe three fingers Dr. Jim Beam's Nerve Tonic and Brain Elixir.