$50 PROTEIN SKIMMER Review and Tips

Abridged Transcript:

I can attribute most of my success with keeping this reef tank to these hang on back protein skimmers. This product single handedly is one of the best things I’ve ever bought in the aquarium hobby. It is one of the rare products that is cheap and actually works really well. In my opinion this is an S-tier product for cheap reefing. Online hang on back protein skimmers are crazy expensive and I mean CRAZY like averaging $250-300. This skimmer coming in at $50 is a steal and usually you'd think that it wouldn't work as good since it is a budget skimmer but you and I would be very wrong.

Now from my knowledge a protein skimmer is a glorified air stone and it works by creating so many bubbles that mulm and other organic compounds will collect by chemical attraction or something and then the bubbles start accumulating and then overflow into the collection chamber. This product also uses a needle wheel which actually creates a lot of bubbles and I've heard of other skimmers using air stones instead which is kinda ironic.

The skimmer has a tube connected to a hole on the collection cup in case it ends up overflowing. The skimmate will just fall back in the tank or another container, I just wish it was further down because even though it's there I still get anxious about it...

I just pipet the gunk out which is a lot easier, faster and helps me sleep at night, so if your like me make sure to buy some large pipette with this skimmer as it will save a lot of time and trouble.It would also be a good idea to buy a toothbrush because gunk will accumulate on the outtake, lid and the walls of the collection chamber and its a good idea to clean those every once in a while

I put the knob in the water which is the primary water inlet knob to the lowest setting which is damn near horizontal, the reason being that I want the grossest skimmate possible and I want it so gunky and disgusting that you question reality where you think: does this stuff really come from my pristine looking reef.

I put the small knob outside the aquarium which is like the fine tuning air knob wherever it makes the water line like 0 to 25% of the outtake hole in the collection cup. This setting gets the foulest skimmate and I love it, its so satisfying to pipet it out of the aquarium knowing it isn't there anymore. This is an extreme version of dry skimming but it means I don't have to empty the skimmer as often, which is the main reason why I do it.

Remember when I jokingly said it needs a pepsi every now and then, it's kinda true after a year of using it. I have increasingly found that I have to tweak the underwater knob much more often, like every 2 weeks, where last year I probably did it 3 or 4 times total. The reason why I have to tweak it is because for some reason it is just inputting water and there are no air bubbles entering the skimmer. By tweaking it I open the knob shortly and then close it back to get some bubble action going and it was a good fix that lasted a long time...

My biggest tip with this product is to watch this closely when you first use it. I remember scrambling to turn it off a couple times in the first 30 min of me setting up the skimmer. I think when you first start it up it goes crazy and then after tweaking it for a bit it balances out. From my experience it takes a week or two to break in and you don't have to monitor it as much, plus there are much less bubbles that enter into the tank...

Another tip is with the small knob, depending on how you turn it you will see water exiting the small tube connected to it, I don't think that is a good thing because I mean it's supposed to be like an air tube. So to err on the side of caution, make sure to have no water going through that hole when your doing fine adjustments to the small knob.

Lastly gunk can form in between the slits of the collection cup lid and this ends up sealing the collection cup so air can't really get through the lid and there is no ventilation. I found that the skimmer doesn't perform as effectively or even at all if I remember correctly, and when I cleaned the slits out it went back to normal...

So far I have had minor problems with the skimmer and these problems are just problems associated with having a skimmer in general. I think this is one of my best purchases so far in my reef keeping journey and major props to Macro Aqua for making a great product for such an affordable price, it is very appreciated by many hobbyists like me trying to dip their toes in reefing and it would even be a viable option to use it on a semi large scale for a hobbyist as they are cheap and effective at their intended purpose. With that said I love this product so far and I’ll see you in a bit.

Link to buy Skimmer: https://amzn.to/3MKuKSl
(This is an affiliate link and I get a small commission if you end up buying it)
*The product is now listed for $64 at the time of posting but it is still pretty affordable compared to other skimmers