Hang on skimmer reviews: prism pro deluxe VS aquac remora pro VS deltec MCE600

[wds21921]

No, but then again most everyone I know has 125 gallon and under tanks. Of the ones I know who use them (remora), they seem to have no problems with them at all. That's why I question some of the reactions. Not discounting your experience with it at all, just wondering why there is (apparently) so much significant difference.
To the best of my recollection, the only other (not HOB) I've seen was on a 75 gallon and 125 gallon combo set up where they used the Aqua C large sump type skimmer (not sure of the exact model). And at least at that time I know they liked that one too.

I think this is a case by case or user by user preference maybe where there is really no winner and perhaps no loser?

To put the shoe on the other foot now since the debate is so easy:

I'd rather pay $225 for something that has worked for me than to gamble $400 (almost twice as much) on something that may not be any better for me or show any real improvements other than what it collects. See what I mean?
And even if it did pull out more gunk (loose term) is it going to be enough of an improvement that it's going to matter or are we hitting the level where it's simply unaesthetics going into a collection cup?

I mean you still have to do the same amount of water changes I would guess, and I've not seen anyone on here say that there was a huge difference in the appearence of there tank or in the health and growth of there animals, or longevity.

It's like the "is it possible to overskim" question. There doesn't seem to be any clear cut answers.

I like the production of skimmate from my Remora and it's a huge step up in output (color, odor and quantity) from the Prizm I had.

For those who absolutely are sold on the deltec's performance congrats and I'm glad you like them, but I've got no reason to spend $400 on something that I'm not sure is going to make that much of a difference other than in appearence.

[sjm817]

I would say the best bet is to read the reviews/posts of people who have owned both products and see what they say. Do they feel it was worth the upgrade? If you have only used one of them, its kind of hard to make a comparison.

[Snarkys]

Originally posted by sjm817
I would say the best bet is to read the reviews/posts of people who have owned both products and see what they say. .

this is absolutely the only way you and hope to get a real answer because if you have only owned one you have no real idea of how the other will perform , just your best guess. so far of all the people i have seen that have owned both it is hands down , no question the deltec.

[Snarkys]

thought id answer your questions as best i can.

So over whatever amount of time you've had the deltec running, you haven't noticed any changes in either the odor or the coloration? Referring to my theory about catching up to the bioload.

as far as the tank goes I haven't seen any real difference , i have a low bio load, don't feed much and do 10% weekly water changes. I believe your theory could be true but certainly not in my case because the remora was pulling out next to nothing and the same day i put the deltec on it pulls out tons of gunk and every day after that it has pulled that much gunk out .

I'm wondering about noticeable differences not just questionable ones.

it is debatable what someone might call noticeable but at the risk of repeating myself, the smell cup has got to the point that as of today my girl friend makes me empty /clean the cup in the laundry tub because whatever room i do it on stinks so bad that she wont put up with it any more, the remora juice hardly had any smell. the deltec foam is constant and always has a " very dry" foam that fills both the cup and the neck of the unit. again it also makes next to no noise , just a low hum and it has a very low visual presence in your tank.

And you also saw it immediately pulling dark skimmate within an hour or so after removing the Remora? (Pro?)

yes , right away . I went from sceptic to happy i spent the money in a matter of hours of turning the unit on.

I'm not questioning it's ability to pull good skimmate at all or that it may in fact be a better overall skimmer.
I'm just curious about those who say things like "the Remora is horrible", "the Remora doesn't work", etc. If they didn't work then I've seen way to many lucky people in a small area including myself.

horrible is up to interpretation, but my "personal experience" would classify the remora as horrible when compared with the deltec and just 'OK' to bad when judged on its own merits

I guess my problem is having to pay $400 or almost double the cost of a decent skimmer which is essentially the cost of a new tank, for one small piece of equipment.
Since we know that removing the skimmate, colloidal proteins and waste from the tank give us better quality water and hopefully better and healthier animals is it that much of a benefit for the cost ratio?

it does cost a lot, if you can afford it i feel the benefits of noise, visibility and quality foam production make it well worth it. personally if i didn't have the money to spend on it i would skip the hang on skimmer entirely and do more water changes. This really is just my opinion and based of my experience with the skimmers. i know that other people are perfectly happy with the both the remoras and prizm pros but i can only give advise based off my experiences.

My apology for the jab too.

takes a lot more than that to hurt my feelings, no harm no foul : )

For those who absolutely are sold on the deltec's performance congrats and I'm glad you like them, but I've got no reason to spend $400 on something that I'm not sure is going to make that much of a difference other than in appearence.

Personally i ebayed the remora pro and overflow box for $199 and it sold in a few hours so it cost me about $260 to upgrade, including shipping.

[DeltecRules]

The deltec mce600 is the best skimmer I had so far. I had the remora pro with the mag 3 for a year and it didn't produce that good. I got maybe 11 ounces of skimate of week out of my heavy bioload of 55 gallon tank which has 55 pounds of live rock and 25 pounds of live sand. I also had alot of messy eaters like fairy wrasses and declivis butterfly. I had cyno and nitrate problems no matter how many water changes I did. So I decided to buy a deltec and I wasn't disappointed. It uses half the watts of power than the mag 3. The bubble size that the deltec pump produces is much smaller than the remora pros. The aquabee needle wheel skimmer sucks in more air than the remora pro did. And you don't have that nasty ugly pump hanging in the tank that ruins the beautiful reef view. I am skimming wet, getting 11 ounces a day of black sludge. Believe me there is a difference. It was worth every penny of $476.00 I paid No detectable nitrates or cyno ever since I ran the deltec.

[frewilly2]

thanks alot im looking for a new hob skimmer and i think ill get the deltec mce600

[chip721]

Originally posted by Snarkys
The unit also has two crappy options for what to do with your pump. either you have that huge mag 3 dangling in your tank or you use the ridiculously large overflow box.

I have a Remora Pro with a Mag5 pump on my 54g. I didn't like the dangling pump or the overflow box. I simply replaced and extended the 3/4" tubing. My pump sits at the very bottem of my tank, out of sight, behind some live rock. It works well for me.

[sjm817]

Originally posted by chip721
I have a Remora Pro with a Mag5 pump on my 54g. I didn't like the dangling pump or the overflow box. I simply replaced and extended the 3/4" tubing. My pump sits at the very bottem of my tank, out of sight, behind some live rock. It works well for me.

Kills any possibility of surface skimming though.

[Snarkys]

Originally posted by sjm817
Kills any possibility of surface skimming though.

this brings up another interesting point , you can't surface skim with the deltec either, however....

when i first bought my remora i didn't have the overflow box but i decided to get it for two reasons , one to hide that ugly pump and two because i was getting a thick oil slick on the top of my water which the oveflow box solved almost entirely. when i was looking at buying the deltec one of the main things i was turned off by was the fact there was no overflow box. I did a few searches here and found that they had no plans off ever adding an overflow box because they say that the unit cleans the water so thoroughly that there isn't anything left to build up on the surface. They also said if you do get some build up just turn a power head at the surface so the film gets mixed back into the water and the unit will clean it out then. To be honest i thought this was a load of crap but I guess its true because the oil slick is gone... BTW i always have had two powerheads aimed at the surface for gas exchange.

[Snarkys]

one last note , the unit does cost a lot but it is a lot cheaper than adding a sump and IMHO is as effective or more effective than many in sump skimmers . I think you can get in sump performance with this unit without adding a sump and save many hundreds of dollars on buying a sump , return pump, in sump skimmer , plumbing , drilling your tank or getting a RR tank ...

[swashbuckler]

Originally posted by Snarkys
one last note , the unit does cost a lot but it is a lot cheaper than adding a sump and IMHO is as effective or more effective than many in sump skimmers . I think you can get in sump performance with this unit without adding a sump and save many hundreds of dollars on buying a sump , return pump, in sump skimmer , plumbing , drilling your tank or getting a RR tank ...

good point, i wonder what the main reasons of a sump may be besides its ability to house a skimmer... b/c technically, if one had a good HOB skimmer like a deltec, there would be no real reason for other methods of filtration (like refugiums)

all you would need to find in tank space for is a heater, and perhaps a place to put carbon... but other than that- sumps with HOB deltec become useless.. $480 for skimmer vs. $500+ for sump and all its components.. just my .02

[The Grim Reefer]

This is the last weeks skimmate from the Remora Pro. The collection cup has to fill about a third of the way before it reaches the drain so there is maybe enough to raise the jug level another 1/2" or so. I think cleaning to collection cup slowed it down some but this is close to what I usually get in a week.

[The Grim Reefer]

This is the last weeks skimmate from the Remora Pro. The collection cup has to fill about a third of the way before it reaches the drain so there is maybe enough to raise the jug level another 1/2" or so. I think cleaning to collection cup slowed it down some but this is close to what I usually get in a week.

[Snarkys]

Originally posted by swashbuckler
good point, i wonder what the main reasons of a sump may be besides its ability to house a skimmer... b/c technically, if one had a good HOB skimmer like a deltec, there would be no real reason for other methods of filtration (like refugiums)

all you would need to find in tank space for is a heater, and perhaps a place to put carbon... but other than that- sumps with HOB deltec become useless.. $480 for skimmer vs. $500+ for sump and all its components.. just my .02

the deltec has a place to put carbon if you want to use it and i aslo use hang on fuges : )

i personaly use all this hang of stuff because my stand doesn't have room for a sump .

[trekel]

is it possible to skim to much

[Universal]

Which online store sells deltec HOB skimmers that deliver to Australia?






Thanks

James.

[ujohnk]

Hi James,
You would be best looking at European online shops. Your voltage is 220v i think, the same as us in Europe. The US is 110v.

john.

[wds21921]

Thanks for the case by case points snarkys. You make a couple of good points I'll have to consider for later. Well put too.

To the question of over-skimming. It's been hashed and re-argued for many years about the ideas of this possibly happening but I've yet to see any proof of it, EVER.
Most of what is collected by the skimmers is proteins and waste along with perhaps some lighter weight minerals and calcium byproducts (mostly unused).

If you notice with a good quality skimmer, as it catches up to the bioload (and most will eventually), the odor and color diminishes. What you are then normally left with is lighter colored water and fewer waste or byproducts and proteins. It can't then overcollect because the heavier proteins and waste are depleted.

In the early 80's and even late 70's when some of the skimmers began to show up in America from Europe, the first reaction was "It's going to remove good components too".
These statements came from some (then reputable) fish enthusiasts.
Fact of the matter is, when it comes to filtration, the skimmer is by far one of the better targeting regimines for cleaning unwanted material from our tanks than almost anything.

I've not seen much if anything except for Refugiums, that is better equiped at removing the material that collects and becomes detrimental to our aquatic friends.
Water changes often help to replenish lost or deminshed trace elements but it really doesn't target very well, the actual waste in the water since it's completely a non-selective process.

The proof of this is how many people used skimmers that are completley over-sized for there tanks? Sometimes as high as 2-4x's over the recommended flow too.

To answer your question simply, no, I don't beleive it's possible and never has been. WHen there isn't enough to collect, it simply stops collecting.

[Snarkys]

there is one more difference between the two units that i have now noticed. the foam that the two created are entirely different .

The foam that i get from the deltec is really thick and dry, so thick that if i turn the unit off the neck of the skimmer stays completely full of the foam. the cup is normally also "full" of this dry foam and it takes quite some time for it to turn back into a liquid and settle out at the bottom. as a reference , you could prolly take a scoop of the foam out in your hand and turn it upside down and it wouldn't drip . maybe i'll try this and take some picks : )

"my experience" with the remora was it always had a wetter foam and if i were to turn the unit off most the bubbles would pop and the neck would be next to empty. that the only time i ever noticed a dry foam in remoras next is when it was producing next to nothing for me and the small amounts would eventually build up a little bit. now i had bad luck with this skimmer so i am highly curious if the people who like the skimmer have similar results with the type of foam or not.

*EDIT*
it should be noted that many people like the wetter style of skimming so that in itself can't immediately considered as a negative, i just wanted to point out some of my observations.

[jmo1]

I've got a 125 gallon FOWLR with medium bioload and light-medium feeding, operating for 2 years... Been running the Deltec MCE600 for 6 months, and I think this skimmer is worth every penny. If you don't want to pay that much for a skimmer, it's understandable. I felt crazy ordering it myself.

You can't deny the effectiveness of something like this when you have to empty it every day and the stuff coming out literally can make you gag if you accidentally get a whiff while you empty it out. The stuff is thick and nasty, and if you consider the total amount of waste you take out from the tank between water changes, I would swear it's more than I put in by feeding. And yes, my tank does look clearer since I got this thing. I added some live rock to my tank as well, but over a couple of water changes, my nitrates went from 50ppm + to 15-20ppm.

Before this I had a Berlin classic, which did nothing despite modding with the venturi and trying a couple of different things (including a pressure rated, high gph pump).

Also have an AquaC Urchin in sump at this time. I get nothing from this skimmer. I have followed all of the suggestions from Mr. Calfo and others on this board, and I can not get this thing to skim anything. Ever. Zippo. Added a stronger pump, it's in a separate compartment that has constant level and is fed directly from overflow boxes...tech support from AquaC has not been able to help me out. I am stumped.

Yeah, I'm a little sore that I dropped $475 on a skimmer...but not even half as sore as I am from paying about that much for two skimmers that won't do anything despite months of tinkering and modding.

If you don't want to pay for Deltec, nobody can argue with that. But I'm happy I did.

[dirtyreefer]

Well I've owned a Prizm (not the Pro), Remora Pro (w/Mag5), CSS 220g and I just purchased the MCE600.

The Prizm wasn't even worth the money, it basically worked like a HOB wet/dry filter which just blew a bunch of big bubbles which is useless for a skimmer.

The Remora Pro was a step up, but it still didn't produce the microbubbles that you would expect from a skimmer. It is well built, and I always gave it so many chances to perform and often blamed my nurient problems on other issues or equipment. I cleaned the spray injector often but never got a nice consistent dark skimmate (only achieved green tea consistency). After 2 years of defending it, I finally ditched it when the CSS 220 needlewheel skimmer came out.

The CSS is built very well, and I found it to be the best performer up to that point hands down. I got some good quality dark skimmate out of that, but I've always hated the pump dangling in the water column (like the Remora Pro). I also found it quite noisy, it sounded like a trickling fountain running in my living room.

Finally I got the MCE600 this week. It is very well build, and you can almost disassemble the entire skimmer to fit your hands inside to give it a good thorough cleaning. The pump not dangling inside the pump is awesome as people who own HOB skimmers usually don't have the largest of tanks already, so real estate is at a premium. The noise is virtually unnoticeable, which is also an awesome feature. Finally, the quality of skimmate is second to none when it comes to HOB skimmers. Nice thick black nog. I always thought that maybe my tank didn't have enough nutrients to produce some nice thick stuff, but I now realize it's all due to the skimmer itself!

So in review, the key points that I look for in a quality HOB skimmer are:

1. Aestetics - Deltec and Prizm (e.g. No pump dangling in the tank, unobtrusive)
2. Ease of cleaning - Deltec hands down (could not get inside any of the other 3 skimmers)
3. Noise - Deltec hands down.
4. Skimmate Quality - So far, the Deltec has been the best. The CSS is a distant second.

[Snarkys]

small part of me is glad i tried the others first so i feel better about spending the $450 on the deltec : )

had i got the deltec first i may have always wondered if it really was that much better than the others ... now i know forsure.

[Alaskan Reefer]

Probably more fair to compare the Deltec to 2 Remoras running at the same time or 4 Prizm Pros. I've been happy with my Remora Pro / Mag 5 setup, but would likely be happier with the Deltec -- although maybe not twice as happy as the cost difference might suggest...

[layer3guru]

Well I have had a Aqua C and Aqua C Pro, TurboFloater and none of them come close to the Coralife 220 I have. This thing skims like you would not believe. I had actually saved up to get the deltec MCE hangon but glad I did not. I didn't because I actually got to see this one in action at a friends house. After 15 minutes it was pulling like you would not believe. I actually felt bad because I felt I had been a bad care taker even with all the on time water changes I even had tremendous growth with the other skimmers but it was obvious they were not keeping up.

You can see it in action here

http://www.digitalrage.org/coppermin...lbum=22&page=2

[Snarkys]

Originally posted by Alaskan Reefer
Probably more fair to compare the Deltec to 2 Remoras running at the same time or 4 Prizm Pros. I've been happy with my Remora Pro / Mag 5 setup, but would likely be happier with the Deltec -- although maybe not twice as happy as the cost difference might suggest...

hmmm , two huge mag fives/huge black boxes in my tank making an obscene amount off noise or 4 prizm pros flooding my floor : )

you do have a valid point and i would tend to agree with you if i had ever got the prizm pro or remora to work well. there is no question that i pull out 3-4 times what i the remora produced in a week with the deltek . what i do pull out has to have like 10 times as much gunk in it so i think id need quite a few remoras to equal one deltek. I think anyone who has owned both units and has seen how they both function first hand would agree. If you have only owned one of the above it is kinda hard to really make the comparision , it would really just be guessing.