Vertex Skimmers
 

Is anyone on here actually using them? Any good/bad experiences are appreciated. The pricetag is nice but I've found in this hobby you often get what you pay for, and I want to know if I'm better off saving my pennies and getting something more well known.

No personal experience, I read some mixed reviews on reef central. The consensus seemed to be that the weak link was the pump. High wattages and not a reliable brand name. Otherwise people seemed pretty happy with them.

Yeah, that wattage seems exraordinarily high for a skimmer, I wasn't sure if it was right.

I know this tank won't be getting a bubble king (just yet anyhow!) but maybe an ER is a safer bet?

Want to see one running? Here's a few shots I was sent :D

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCF5562.jpg

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCF5592.jpg

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCF5610.jpg

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCF5632.jpg

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCF5633.jpg

Ohhh...no thank you!

Don't most people drool over massive foam production? lol

lmao... I was looking at the first 2 pics thinking the skimmate didn't look very dark. And then it just got worse from there. I think the guy I share an office with is wondering why I'm sitting here laughing at my computer.

Sigh... Those images are from this tank:

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCF5597.jpg

I think there's all of two snails and a goby in there.

Anyway, here's a few more:

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...5/DSCF0644.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...1006081004.jpg

Ok, those pics are better - the first ones looked like an accident!! Great foam yeah but I worry it would end up all over the floor?? The second pics have the nice dark (yummo!) skimmate that I like to see!

Any skimmer of this design, properly setup, won't throw foam on your ceiling. If something goes wrong with it, or something is in the water (some conditioners), they can overflow. My ER does this if I let the venturi clog, but it happened once.

no bubbleking or hydor but I'd say it's better than a euroreef, considering it's made in the same plant and has the same pump (the resun is a rebrand of the gen-x).

I've had extensive experience with one and it's well worth the money I believe. Sure it's made in china but $320 for a 250 gallon skimmer? It's on a 286g fish only tank skimming pretty damned good.

Good value.

Hmm!

How easy is it to take off the skimmer cup for cleaning?

The only thing that is of concern is that the pump for the 250 gallon model uses 140 watts as compared to the Euroreef RS250 which is drawing 60 watts.

Anyone have a Vertex 250 and a watt meter?

Cheers,
Vic

In our store we are using the Vertex Models on some of our systems. I chose one of each size and so far so good. As for having a meter no I am sorry I do not have one to check the draw.

I can however say that they are a great skimmer .....basically in the simplest words they are quality engineering and performance at a tiny bit more than coralife prices!!!

We carry the full line and am happy to report that we like them very much as they make an excellent skimmer affordable for most begginers and experienced reefers alike.

Just looking it up, the Vertex IN250 is $320. The EuroReef RS250 is $490. They are the same height and diameter.

Hell, for the $170 difference, you could slap on whatever pump you want and still take advantage of all the additional features of the Vertex...

I'm seriously going to have to take a long gander at these things for my own setup.

Well the height and diameter being the same is correct however throwing "whatever" pump on these would be a choice as they have been developed with their own impellor to work best with the bubble plates and efficiency.

Throwing another pump on these may or may not produce the same results as initially determined by the manufacturer.

Could anyone point to any specifications on these? I can't find any info on pump GPH, airflow LPH, etc.

The proof will be in the pudding. I have both a Dwyer airmeter and a Kill-a-Watt device so if anybody in the Vancouver area has one of these skimmers I'd be happy to do some testing.

This applies to any skimmer, BTW :)

Hey.... if you wanna make a road trip out of it that would be cool. Maybe we can go to some of the shops in the Valley :)

Cheers,
Vic

We live too far to participate but I'm really interested in those results!

Good idea Vic, we can make up skimmer testing service t-shirts and everything. Anthony can do the driving ;)

Ordered an In-180 this morning. For the price, how do you go wrong?

Well, okay then. This week is no good for me, too busy with work, but later sounds like a "fish-geek day-of-fun".

Irene: "Where you going?"

Anthony: "Out with the guys."

Irene: "Whatcha doing?"

Anthony: "Visiting reefers and testing their skimmers' performances."

K - picked up the 180 today...it's huge!! I'll post pics in a bit

Phoebe demo'ing the 120g

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...20gphoebe2.jpg

Skimmer in box (the 180)


http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...80/skimmer.jpg

Delilah checking it out

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...hskimmer-1.jpg

In sump

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...0/skimmer2.jpg

Just got my "IN-180" in the mail this morning and will now be late for work from setting it up!

Keri already posted some dry pictures so I won't bore you guys with 2 rounds of dry shots but I'll give you my initial impressions and maybe snap some shots tonight after it's been running for 7 or 8 hours.

My first thought is that it feels like a heavy duty, solid product. The pump is a resun King something or other rated at 1000gph with a power consumption of 70watts. I may bite the bullet and buy a killawatt meter to find out just how much it is actually consuming.

Setup was fairly easy, my only complaint with setup is that there is no picture. There was an instruction to "setup wedge pipe assembly" which consisted of maybe 4 or 5 pieces of PVC. Not a big deal as it took me all of 30 seconds to look up a picture online and go "aha". That was actually the longest part of the setup (turning on the computer). Otherwise I had it installed in about 15 minutes from opening the box and laying everything out.

Started up without any hickups, pump is DEAD silent. The loudest part of the whole assembly is the air intake which whistles a little. Bubbles are much smaller then they were in my tunze 9010 and it's obviously pulling a TON of air through it.

Still at work so no pics yet but I had a thought and did some investigating. With all the concern about the energy draw, I did some "comparative shopping" to find out what other pumps with similar flow rates are pulling.

Hydor Seltz l40 @740gph is drawing 55 watts
Sedra KSP 9000 @900gph is drawing 90 watts
Eheim 1262 @900gph is drawing 80 watts
Quiet one 4000 @1017gph is drawing 50 watts

So if we pop the Resun in there at 70 watts/1000gph it's smack in the middle for power consumption beating out the eheim and the sedra.

That puts it a little better into perspective as far as power consumption goes anyways

We're still running FW in ours trying to get rid of the dead corraline on the back but even with just that it's pulling out some snot, so far I'm impressed

Those figures are misleading with respect to skimmer performance. The wattage you quote is the rated power for pumping 100% water. You won't be pumping 100% water while using it on a needlewheel skimmer since air is being mixed in. This will necessarily reduce the power consumption since air is a lot easier to move than water. Further, the GPH quoted is also for pumping 100% water and not an air water mixture. As a result, the proper analysis to do for a pump's skimmer performance is Litres per Hour of AIR (LPH) versus wattage draw. The only way to do this is with a Dwyer air meter and a Kill-a-Watt device since different pumps respond differently to being converted into air/water mixing devices. You must remember we are essentially using these pumps for a purpose they were not originally designed to do.

For example, the Sedra 9000 on my WM RX200 pulls about 1,000 to 1,100 lph at 47 watts (not 90W) - these are actual observed measurements by myself and consistent with the manufacturer's ratings.

I expect the Resun pumps to pull less power than their "water" rating, but the question is how much and at what amount of air flow? What I am surprised about is that the distributor/marketer (Proline, I believe) didn't provide these numbers in their marketing materials as with most skimmers. Other than construction quality and low noise, BK marketing is all about very low wattage draw to very high air draw. It's not that hard to determine the numbers. This is why I am somewhat concerned about the actual performance of the Resun pumps if no one has bothered to publish them. So my offer to test a vertex skimmer (or any skimmer) in the Lower Mainland stands.

It's not like we don't have busy lives, but it sounds like we're off to test some skimmers this weekend:redface::lol:

Here are some photos of the vertex IN-250 in action. I think the Vertex is the king of the low-end after having a few weeks experience with one. Hydor's king of midrange, Bubbleking king of high end and Tunze king of the small form-factor. My only gripe is the IN-250 is so damned tall and the cup's a bit of a pain to remove without spilling skimmate. You need like 32" to remove the cup n all. But the performance is pretty damned good.

I have a watt meter at home I might be able to test it out with but from experience every pump I've tested tests up to double the rated wattage once head pressure is applied. That's the reason I bought the kill-a-watt because I was pretty sure some things on my tank were sucking more power than what was on the labels. Plus you may be comparing it to an older euroreef with a Sedra pump. Euroreefs now use Gen-X pumps which is the same damned pump as a Resun (which the Vertex uses) except the Resun is hermetically sealed around the heatsink while most of the Gen-X models aren't (opened up a couple resuns to confirm the suspicion).

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p.../iphone043.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p.../iphone065.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p.../iphone024.jpg

the nog on there looks pretty nice... I wonder how this rates up to the octo extreme... decisions decisions.

SO, I finally got around to taking some pictures. These shots are from earlier tonight so say 24-32hrs of running. I moved from a Tunze 9010 so adjusting this has been a little hit and miss for me. About half the skimmate that you see is a direct result of me overflowing the skimmer a little as I play around with "tuning" it. Still not sure if I've got it set properly but I guess time will tell!!

Enjoy

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...sCamera029.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...sCamera030.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...sCamera031.jpg

Delicious!

We went out and fkshiu tested the Vertex 250.

I'll let fkshiu post about the results.

Cheers,
Vic

OK. Had a chance to check out Aquatic Addictions today in Abbotsford (formerly Hidden Reef) and brought along my trusty Kill-a-Watt and Dwyer RMA-22 to test a Vertex IN-250 which they had running on one of their coral tanks.

Results: 900 LPH at 67 watts.

As expected, it's quite a bit less than the listed wattage of the Resun pump as a water pump of 145 watts. However, it does fall short of a few other common needlewheel pumps in terms of air draw vs. electrical draw.

To give you a comparison here are a few examples:

Eheim 1260 - ~950 LPH at 52W (found on bigger Deltecs and ERs)
AquaBee 2001 - ~700-800 LPH at 38W (found on smaller Deltecs and Bubble Magus)
Sicce PSK2500 - ~900 LPH at 25W (found on Bubble Masters, big Tunzes, Octo Pros)
Sedra 5000 - ~700-800 LPH at 35W (found on ERs and ASMs)
Sedra 9000HO - ~1000-1100 LPH at 47W (found on Warner Marines)
Red Dragon1500 - 1600 LPH at 38W (found on Bubble King Mini200)
Gen-X 6000 - 1080 LPH at 60W (found on ERs)

Of course, this measure isn't what solely makes a skimmer. There are many other factors as well. However, it is a good objective measure of performance.

The build quality is not bad at all. Some downsides are that the collection cup connector is pretty precarious, the bubble plate does not look like it is removable for cleaning and the bubble plate itself looks homemade - i.e. it's just some holes drilled into a piece of plastic as opposed to the finely machined convex holes of higher quality plates that will do a better job of controlling and directing bubble flow.

All in all, it is quite good bang for the buck at its price point. The longterm question is whether the Resun pump will hold up over time and how it will react to meshmodding.

PS - thanks for Seahorse_Fanatic for the ride and the bottle of Sprite. And thanks for Aquatic Addictions for letting me crawl around their equipment and giving us free t-shirts to boot!

I'm pretty sure that pump is the same OEM as the Sedra / Gen-x / Sen / Aqua Euro. So it's probably not bad at all.

My Vertex IN-100 pulls 20 watts when producing foam, 42 watts if air inlet plugged and just pumping water. Tested using a Kill-O-Watt meter.

I would assume the 250 is the same, you could half the rated wattage when the pump is producing foam

For you guys that have bought these skimmers, what other skimmers have you previously owned that you are making your judgements against?

I'm on the hunt for a new skimmer. I don't want to cheap out, but if they are actually fairly good when compared to the industry leaders, then I'm all in for a good deal. :D

Also, sorry if I missed it, but where are you guys finding the best price on these skimmers? J&L seems a bit high...?

What's your definition of an industry leader?