Reeflo/Sequence Skimmer Club

[HDAlien]

I had a weird thing happen last night with the skimmer. Out of the blue it went crazy and overflowed, clear water, not skimmate. I had to quickly stop it, empty the collection cup and reset the T to completely open. Once I restarted it it went back to normal. Anyone have this happen or have any idea why? I checked the level and it was even with the flange of the neck without the DART running?

[benf]

mine too..only thing i can think of in my case was i bumped up the water flow a small amt(very small), but apparently still too much.

[HDAlien]

That's what's weird about it, I hadn't messed with the water level since last weekend when I installed it.

[wizsmaster]

i've never had that happen.
I'm wondering if either of you had paint around the house, or were painting? not suer if there are other chemicals tht will do this.

A friend of mine was painting a bedroom on the other side of the house, even vented the room to do so, and closed the door, but he ended up flooding his living room with his skimmer that went crazy from the fumes. I think he said he ran carbon for about a week afterwards, his skimmer kept going crazy for days after...

[HDAlien]

Nope, I was sitting on my couch sipping a martini and watching TV....

[wizsmaster]

hmmnn ... is your skimmer output below the water line? I cannot have mine under water, if I do, the air vent starts to gurgle, backup, and the water in the skimmer starts to rise & overflow.

were you able to see by any chance, if the skimmer went crazy with skimmate, or did the water in the body rise to a point where it overflow'ed?

[wizsmaster]

"overflowed" .. is that even a proper word?

[HDAlien]

I do have the output submerged but wouldn't it only back siphon is the feeder pump was not running? Also I drilled a small siphon break hole in the return portion. It overflowed with water, not skimmate. I think this one will just be chalked up to total mystery unless it happens again and I can investigate it.

[blenny90]

Mine overflowed night before last. I set it high because I had little skimmate to pull and it overflowed. I have my return pipe out of the water. Don't want to but it will overflow if the sump level changes. My "twist pipe" seems very touchy. I think I'm going to do a gate valve mod.

With all the overflows it seems JenDub's "skimmer-in-a-tub" idea is pretty good.

[HDAlien]

No kidding, I wish I had room to do what Jendub did.

[JenDub]

You don't need much room to do the table, basically it could be built in the same area the skimmer takes up. For example you can get the 4'X2' model of the gorilla rack and only use the 2' pieces to build a 2' square stand. The side pieces are each 3 feet tall so you can do 2X 3' tall workbenches or a full 6' tall stand. Ideally it would be located right above the sump to save room & make plumbing easy.

I would definitely recommend a gate valve mod on all of these skimmers for two reasons; it makes the overall height of the riser taller so you need to restrict the line less to dial the water level and it allows for small precision adjustments. For a $1500 skimmer a $20 gate valve is a small expense IMO.

Also, I have noticed the skimmer often overflows after a power outage . My theory is that the feed pump changes pressure slightly upon restart and this is enough to flood the skimmer.

Either way I know I sleep much better with the wet table installed =)

[cweder]

I did the air valve mod to mine. Instead of making the hole bigger. I replaced the part entirely. The new piece is about twice as wide as the original for air to flow. Performance wise, as Jeremy has said I really cant tell, although my pump seems quieter and smoother. The pump may have simply broken in. I did not touch the venturi and I can still reinstall the original air valve if I want. I did notice mine not producing when I cranked up the water flow. Once I slowed it down the skimmer kicked in.
I think if these really need a bigger venturi for better performance I'll let them tell us. It was kind of a pain draining this thing. A drain on the skimmer or on the pump would work.

[RokleM]

cweder, did you happen to check with a kill-a-watt before and after?

[RokleM]

Well, I picked mine up. I purchased it local at PhishyBusiness. I've put together some initial thoughts, suggestions, and assembled some pictures. Bare with me as this may take a couple of posts...



Some will remember a month or so ago, I asked who's run it on a system with a comparable high end skimmer already in place (or at least something that's kind of close to the Reeflo). I decided to do just that, and keep my GEO online during the process. There are many posts about the skimmer itself, so I'll focus on comparisons for now.

It's a all out, no punches pulled, head-to-head contest for ... um ... poop collection? I will hold my overall thoughts for the end.

Roughly 350 gallons of tank space, hard to tell the actual water volume.





(frag, sump, etc not shown)

Current skimmer: Almost two year old GEO 8x24 main chamber (35 total height), dual Gen-X 4100 mesh mod pumps, roughly 300 GPH flows through.

[RokleM]

As stated, I'm keeping my GEO online as I perform this testing on the Reeflo. It's been feed by a Panworld 40-PX throttled back to about 300-350ish GPH. The water level is about 1/2" below the black part of the neck. Output is directly into the sump with no restriction.


09.07.2007 - Freshwater leak tests and initial break-in










09.08.2007 - Roughly 30 hours later, starting to form a slight head






09.10.2007 - Starting to get somewhere




At this point after the 09.10.2007 shots, I cleaned the cups, necks, and lids of both skimmers. The Reeflo should have been "mostly" through the initial break in process. One thing I will note here, is that the GEO had a head on it less than 60 minutes after clean install. The Reeflo didn't have a solid non-collapsing head until at least 24 hours later (but more on that later).

[RokleM]

On 09.16.2007 - Back from MACNA and ready to review the results

Reeflo - Really good head right now (left pump on), slight buildup on inside riser



GEO - Equally good head (turned pumps off, the one variation), thick buildup on inside riser



Reeflo - Cup



GEO - Cup



Reeflo - Output is decently dark, right over 0.5L



GEO - Output is decently dark (slightly more so than the Reeflo, but barely), right at 0.5L






SOOOOOO... having had it for a couple of weeks, what are my thoughts?

First, I haven't done any tweaking or modifiying at all. I pretty much set it, and let it crank. It is possible, even likely it will get slightly better in the near future as it breaks in further.

1) Packing was OUTSTANDING!

2) I mentioned earlier about the cleaning. I've owned a few skimmers over the years, and this one seems to be _slightly_ more touchy when it comes to cleaning and especially feeding. It takes a little longer to come back to life after these events. It could be a matter of it not being fully broken in, working better when dirty, the larger diameter riser tube amplifying tank impacts, etc. Hard to tell as of yet, but it looks to confirm that keeping the hands out of the tank is more and more important.

3) The obvious, not made in America and not "standard" piping. I'm torn on this subject as many Americans are, but I won't go into a rant The pipes not being standard aren't a huge deal as long as you get it built the way you'd like the first time and don't change things around. I'd hope (and assume) they'll have spare parts available if you run into issues.

4) My tank temperature went up about a 0.5 - 0.7 degrees when I turned the skimmer on due to the excessive heat of the dart. I have a small fan running near it to assist, but will look for other long term solutions to help with this. Not a big deal for most of us, but if you're having heat issues now or have concerns, this won't help matters.

5) Get rid of the magic marker looking "Reeflo" on the side of the unit. They went to all the trouble to etch the lid and put a poor quality sticker on the side (which is what most people will see).

6) Having some very nice acrylic hardware, and doing a little work myself on the side, I'd call the acrylic work on the skimmer "decent". There are air bubbles in a few places. The edges look to have been cut with a slightly dull router bit and/or too deep of a cut (not having the polished look). None of these threaten the structural integrity of the unit, but jumps out to some of us that enjoy the hardware almost as much as the tanks So build quality overall is solid, but could absolutely use a number of refinements as they move forward to bring it up to par.

7) I'm not overly concerned about lack of access to the bottom of the box (would have been nice), but agree with many that a drain should be included. I will be placing one on the pump and possibly the box itself.

8) In my opinion, the o-ring on the neck should be quite a bit bigger. It's relatively flimsy, and you need to be careful when you re-isntall your neck as to not get it out of place (or water flies everywhere). I believe i was built out of 1/8th or so material. Personally, I would have used 1/4, or at worst 3/8th. Not life or death to the unit, just something that can be fine tuned.

9) As mentioned, it definitely has an overflow issue. You have to be very careful when setting your height of water. If you set it too high (which is pretty low for many other skimmers), you will absolutely blast water into the cup when you turn the pump back on.

10) Power consumption is low (100w-ish) and LPH is high. I can't check the LPM on this pump, as my meter only goes to 50 SCFM, but will be borrowing one shortly.

11) It's just an assumption on the venturi port, but I'm guessing they do not line up the threads when they drill the hole. This should be done to ensure that the hole is always up when "joe user" tightens the unit. Unfortunately, mine is almost perfectly pointed towards the box, and wrenching it a little too far beyond comfort, I can get it to the point where I have the port at about a 45 degree position. In order to have it straight up, I would have had to back it up 3/4 of a turn and applied a MASSIVE amount of tape. It's a very minor fix to do it right, but something they're probably overlooking due to not thinking about it.

12) Sound wise, it's about comparable to my GEO, which is very quiet. Without air input, the pump is LOUD, but quiets down quickly once air is injected. It's not bad, and might not be recognizable under a stand.


So... a number of posts, pictures, and rambling means what? Get me the bottom line already!!!

Honestly, my GEO is putting up a LOT more fight than I thought. I figured the Reeflo would be out-skimming it by at least 100%, and there are quite a number of reasons that it should be. At over double the water volume and airflow, I expected the GEO to get crushed, but it actually outpaced it slightly. We'll see how it does in the coming weeks, so more to come on that. Overall, I'd say it's a decently solid buy for someone with a lower end skimmer, looking to upgrade, or building a new tank. There are a lot of alternatives out there, but prices start to go up VERY quickly as the gallons go up. Obviously many are extremely high priced. If you have a quality skimmer that's performing "ok", should you run out and buy it? Maybe. Look into tuning your current one first, as it's been shown that an older/smaller unit can do about the same job without too much of an issue. Overall, a solid buy, but being a new product could definitely use a few design tweaks.

It will be interesting over the coming months if those that moved to the Reeflo keep having amazing skimmate, or if the Reeflo went through a "burst" as it cleaned and polished a "dirty" (and I use those terms loosely, please understand) tank where their old skimmer didn't keep up. I would love to see it keep up the pace.

Again, my opinion on all of this, so take it, leave it, or learn from it. Up to you

[chetm2]

RokleM - Nice write-up. I'd say you need to raise your water level a little bit. I noticed a lot more foam and nasty stuff coming out with my water level about even with the first black piece where the cup connects to the body. I do agree that if you like to have your hands in the tank the skimmer really reacts, as well as feedings. I'd say you have 2 very nice skimmers now

[RokleM]

Thanks chetm2. I will as soon as I figure out a fix for the overflow issue.

OH, I forgot (as if I didn't add enough junk in there), two mods I'd like to see (either purchase or preferably DIY):
1) Self cleaning head
2) Overflow sensor for my AC3 so I can shutdown the skimmer if it gets too close to the edge of the lid (overflow issue).

[chetm2]

Whats weird is mine has never overflowed. If I have the skimmer pump off and restart it will climb up the neck fast but always seems to stop before overflowing. My sump level always stays the same so that might be the difference. A SCH would be sweet but would never fit under my tank

[RokleM]

I have a float valve in my sump, so my water level is the same as well. You're right on the flying up quickly, but mine doesn't stop right before the lip when I have it set to the black flange (which is why I have it set a bit lower).

Also mentioning, I know a few have had a overflow while running normally. I haven't had that issue thus far. Mine seems very stable with a constant head after it's started and back to a little "dirty" in the neck.

[cweder]

I agree with the O-ring, its too flimsy and small. I'd like a free replacement frankly. Its useable but I am not completely comfortable with it.

How did you have your skimmers set up. Its tough to judge without this knowledge. If one has the most access to the dirty water or even first shot, that would really skew the results.
What did you do to ensure equal access to the dirty water?

[RokleM]

100 gallon open poly sump with the skimmer inputs literally an inch away from each other.

[pwhitby]

I would be interested to see what happens between skimmers with limited "pollutants" in the tank. Both may work equally when there is lots of stuff to remove, but ultimately one may shut the other down as pollutants fall.

--Im not saying your tank is polluted Roklem.....

One thing I noticed with my skimmer, that you not be accounting for is the airflow really dries the crud in the Orca cup. Comparing the color density may not be the best way to compare. As a suggestion, dilute the crud say 1:5 in water then see how far you look through it and still read/see something. That will be a little better estimate of "darkness" not perfect at all, but better.

Nice write up BTW.

Paul.

[RokleM]

Good point Paul, and that reminds me of something I failed to mention asd was also touched on in a few follow up conversations I had. The inside of the cup was mixed in order to release any solid material. As well, the buildup on the neck was added and mixed to show the true amount of material caught by the skimmer.

It also leads up to the entire reason I'm doing this. One, my tanks are pretty algae free, however I feed heavily and love my SPS. Secondly, I'm redoing mostly of my plumbing, building a new sump, and will be increasing quite a bit the flow through the sump. Currently my turnover rate is much too low for my liking, and I want to ensure that I have a beefy enough skimmer to handle the additional matter. It's also valuable for me to perform these tests PRIOR to my sump/infrastructure change, as I'll be able to gauge the performance of my new sump setup and throttle up or throttle down the turnover rate and see the impact.

It's not exact science, but it's the best I could do

I posted the same in my local thread and had a couple of good questions.

One was if the combined output was less, equal, or more than the GEO originally pulled. As skimmate density changes, it's hard to gague that perfectly, but I'd guess the two combined are about equal or slightly more than the single GEO.

As well it was asked if I would shutoff the GEO and see what the Reeflo can do by itself and compare. I will indeed do that in the next couple of weeks, but I want to compare skimmate a couple more times. I want to ensure the Reeflo is truly fully broken in for a fair comparison.

[JenDub]

So has anyone drawn up plans for that self-cleaning head?