Reef Octo LX1000s HOB Arrival + Unboxing + Performance

[crank2211]

There's a pinch of green tea at the bottom of the cup currently since I left for work this morning, nothing too serious yet but it's barely been 24hrs. Still skimming pretty wet right now, larger wet bubble at the bottom of the riser tube, frothy foam dancing near the top. Looking forward to see how it performs in the next couple days.

I managed to figure out the humming sound. Turns out the curved floating top plate that sits over the in-tank portion of the box shouldn't sit and float. It needs to be wedged between the front clear piece of acrylic and under a rubber stopper that I couldn't figure out what the purpose of which was before.

I'll grab an intank picture of the skimmer in a bit. I can tell you now that the next pictures I post should be considered a "Before" shot. Stand by for my first DIY Black mod for the box some time this weekend. I've got some materials ready and standing by already

[crank2211]

Okay as promised here's the "Before" shots and a couple pics of performance. It's beginning to settle down a bit but I'm still running a bit wet.









Skimmate: ~16hrs




And here's the start of my "skinning mod".

$20 of .060 black acrylic and silicone to tone it down.

[jason2459]

Nice setup. Wish they designed the intake a little better to not protrude so much. I'm looking forward to seeing how your skin mod works out. I was thinking of getting some black krylon spray paint.

[crank2211]

So the skimmers been offline now for just over a day to work on my skinning project. The silicone's been curing now for about 20 hours and it's back in the tank. I just snapped a few pics. Overall there's a few red highlights that are still visible. I think I'll leave the for the time being as I kind of like them. My main goal was to reduce the amount of red seen when looking in the tank and to make sure the viewers eye is not immediately attracted to the skimmer instead of the livestock in the tank. Overall I think the project satisfies those goals. I'll be working on an LED lighting project next, and with that I'll most likely make a suspended canopy to house the lights and at the same time completely remove the above tank portion of the skimmer from sight, or at least the majority of it. Here's where I'm at now:











This was done with a very modest workspace, toolset and skill set with working with acrylic. Notice I added some ramps for the water to flow down through the output instead of splashing down into the water. I was hearing a slight trickle sound every once in awhile.

Should time allow, and the motivation, I might attempt covering the last bits of red in the tank with the left over acrylic. I'll be sure to post those results should they happen

[jason2459]

That does tone down the brightness of the red. I really like the ramps. Should cut down on bubbles created by the splashing as well. I'll have to do something like that I'm sure.

[crank2211]

Thanks Jason, the ramps do help out a bit. Also a bit of cotton shoved in the silencer helps immensely! The silencer does do it's job okay without it, but IMO some cotton in there cuts the sound coming out it by greatly making it almost completely silent. I think I'm just going to go ahead and make the last couple cut outs for the remaining visible red parts viewed from the tank. It should only take maybe another hour and IMO would really finish it off.

[steevareno2002]

How is it with returning bubbles to the tank?

[crank2211]

Originally Posted by steevareno2002

How is it with returning bubbles to the tank?

Steve back on the first page near the end around post 23 or so I briefly mention bubbles in the tank. Have a gander n check out the pics but honestly there are 0 bubbles making it's way in the tank. Well thought out on their part for sure. Not sure if I posted it but here's a pic showing how the overflow back into the tank works. microbubbles worst nightmare.

[ochriso]

Thanks for the play by play. the skin looks great. My wife said the red must be so anybody that sees it will know what type of skimmer you have. She said some really expensive shoe has a certain color sole on it so everyone would know that you have a pair. not the case with my good ole nike though or our cpr bak pak.

[steevareno2002]

Nice, that's good to know. Might just sell the ole 800S and buy one!

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by coralnewbee

I love the red!

Then you'll LOVE this skimmer!

[steevareno2002]

How's the skimmer doing?

[luther1200]

Looks like a nice skimmer, that red really is obnoxious though. Your skin mod took care of it pretty well though. Did you know it was red when you bought it?

[crank2211]

Originally Posted by steevareno2002

How's the skimmer doing?

Skimmers doing quite well actually. Beginning to settle in nicely and finally produce some consistent results. The pump has since quieted down and is now almost silent and unnoticeable in my living room where the tank sits. I've got some nice progress shots on my camera at home, I'll post some results.

I'm a little disappointed however, in the bubble performance in the riser tube. At any given point in time, within the body of the skimmer, there's a million very tiny small bubbles. Great. However as they get to the base of the riser tube, they seem to merge together and form into wet fast large fat bubbles. The entire riser tube it seems, is constantly full of wet medium - large bubbles popping their way up and then at the very top is a small layer of frothy foam. I'm not a skimmer expert, and don't know if this is normal. I would imagine ideally that I would want small tiny bubbles the entire way up the tube into the collection cup with a thick stable froth on top. Haven't really been able to get that yet. I'll post some pics/vid tonight on what I mean.

I have noticed also, that in some way the results I see in the riser tube are connected to water level in the tank, as well as the position of the adjustable plate on the intake portion of the skimmer. At first I thought the acrylic plate was intended to serve as a sort of blocker at the bottom of the grate to only let surface water in, but it became apparent that it's much to small to serve that purpose and sliding it up/down along the grill portion, in some ways effects the type and intensity of the bubbles I'm seeing in the riser tube. I haven't been able to figure out the ideal position for this jammy yet, I might need to contact the manufacturer for a ruling on position and water level height.

Last gripe. As well thought out as everything is, the one thing that could use help is the "U" shaped intake tube that runs from inside the intake chamber from inside the tank, over the tank wall, and directly into the hy-1000 pump. When the power goes off, the water level drop a bit, and 1/2 of the water is drained out of the tube. Because of the air intake design, when the power comes back on the pump still pulls water and air but the "U" tube will remain only half filled with water. You need to manually block off the silencer, allow the pump to only suck water and re-prime the tubing fully and finally release the silencer. Exactly how you would do it if you were priming the pump for the first time. It's possibly over time, that it might be able to eventually get everything 100% primed and functional again after a power outage on its own. I've just never sat and waited to see if it would happen. Note that the pump doesn't ever run dry in this case, just that the feed tube isn't all the way filled and you need to manually block air to allow it to fill itself fully. Not a huge deal, but not ideal either.

With all that said, at the end of the day I still end up with a bunch of dark horrible smelling crap in the cup. Much more than the old Remora. And even though I don't like the bubbles in the riser tube, for me it's hard to argue with the results I've seen in the last few weeks. I've easily emptied out 8x as much crap out of the collection cup with this skimmer as I would have with my old one.

[crank2211]

Originally Posted by luther1200

Looks like a nice skimmer, that red really is obnoxious though. Your skin mod took care of it pretty well though. Did you know it was red when you bought it?

Hey, thanks. I knew it was red. I didn't how big it was going to be or how distracting it was going to look on the tank.

[jason2459]

Interesting issue you have with the air getting in the intake u-tube. I haven't had that issue at all. It remains full all the time. I power off the skimmer when ever I feed or do a water change and never had that issue yet. I keep that acrylic peice all the way down right now. In fact I can't lift it because I forgot to take it out when painting and it's sealed now. I'd have to pry it off if I wanted to adjust it.

I was about to but realized this might be a very good thing and turns out I was right. When I do a water change and the water level gets below that intake chamber the slider being all the way down keeps enough water in that chamber so the intake u-tube never drains out. As soon as the water level fills back up I can turn the skimmer back on like nothing happened.

[jason2459]

It'll be interesting to see the vid to see what that foaming looks like. Might be they needed to make the neck opening just a little bigger. But if it's pulling out nice skimmate then that's all that maters in the end I guess.

[crank2211]

Interesting.. Perhaps my intake tube has a leak somewhere, or I really need to seal that slider thing all the way down like yours. You're right though, it should work like an overflow box and keep the siphon all the time.. Maybe that's the source of my probs?..

[crank2211]

As promised here's what I managed to get.. The video was taken the other day, so it doesn't exactly show what I was trying to talk about with the larger bubbles in the riser tube but you can kind of see what I'm talking about.

edit
Video is acting up. All I get is audio, no video for some reason.. Will post it when I get it figured out...


Here's the skim shots.. 3 days total.. 1 really wet skim for a day after I cleaned the cup. Seems like the bubbles get even larger and wetter for a day, green tea colored junk, then settles down. Another 2 days of regular performance filled the rest with dark stuff.





Also, I lowered the slider all the way to the bottom and tightened it up good. Turned off the power to feed and had the same thing happen with the intake tube. The water level drops out of the skimmer to match the water level in the tank, causing a siphon. When that happens it looks like it pulls air through the silencer as well forming a large air pocket in the tube. When I turn on the power again, it doesn't look like it wants to start back up normally, I need to block air and allow it to fill up all the way again, essentially priming it again. If I block the silencer when I cut the power, everything works fine. Anyone have a good suggestion?

[luther1200]

Looks like its skimming pretty well

[jason2459]

Looks like you got some nice wet skimmate and caked on around the neck. So, what ever the foaming looks like it is producing pretty well. As for the intake tube, don't know what to tell you. Strange you're having that problem on the lx-1000 and I'm not on the lx-2000 considering the 2000 has bigger tubbing. Air shouldn't be going in the air intake which is why you definitely want the silencer above the water level or the water will siphon out.

[jason2459]

Strike that, I can see by the design of the pump placement to the side instead of on the bottom inside of the skimmer or underneath the skimmer body that it might actually draw air in through the air intake as its stabilizing the water level. Might just have to remember to plug the air line before turning it off.

[mr9iron]

This is a great thread! Thanks for the pictures and play by play of the skimmer. I am considering one of these for my NanoCube28 but am not sure if it will fit in the back chamber and if it will cause issues when opening my canopy.

[mr9iron]

Any updates on the skimmer Crank? What is the measurement from left to right on the part of the skimmer that actually sits in the water. I have minimal space in between my baffles and am curious if this will fit. I really don't want to take the baffles out but I guess I can if needed.

[jason2459]

Just checked my riser tube on shut down and there is a little air up in there as well. Just never thought about it or noticed it. I guess the bigger diameter tubing allows it to not loose the siphon. On start up it just sucks that air right out and no need to plug up the air intake.