[redseasteve]

Protein Skimmer

This was an important one for Red Sea to get right. The skimmer on the first Red Sea Max came in for quite a bit of criticism – some of it justified, some not so. It was fairly criticised due to its noise, which was down to the skimmer pump itself rather than anything to do with the functioning of the skimmer. Other criticisms came about from some people suffering microbubbles in their tanks, although once the tank and skimmer had been set up properly this normally ceased to be a problem. The final criticism came down to the efficiency of the skimmer. Due to the design of the filter grill, it wasn’t really practical to run the water level up to the optimum height for the skimmer to give its best, and therefore people were disappointed in the lack of gunk in their skimmer cups. However, running the water level at its optimum level and stopping it from dropping did allow the skimmer to work efficiently, and Red Sea have recently brought out a skimmer box add-on (which comes as standard on the new 130D) which allows the skimmer to operate at its best in a much wider range of conditions. Unfortunately, the Internet being what it is, the accepted fact started to become that the standard skimmer was not up to the job and it got to the stage on some forums where any new members awaiting or having just taken delivery of their RSMs were told that they needed to by an alternative skimmer. So people are going to want to know how the skimmer in the 250 compares with the original 130 (the new 130D also has a new design of skimmer, similar to the 250’s)

The skimmer in the 250 is of similar initial appearance to the 130 skimmer, consisting of a square-section tapered housing in which the air/water interface takes place around a series of baffles, and a large removable rectangular collection cup that fits on top of it, though that is where similarities end. The skimmer is powered by a 1200l/h pump, which runs virtually silently. The airline from the pump connects to an adjustable air valve that is affixed to the side of the cup. The air valve feeds from a small chamber inside the cup, to which is connected another airline that feeds outside the tank to bring drier air in from the room.

Within the removable cup itself is a clever design – the height of the neck up which the bubbles “climb” before passing into the cup can be easily adjusted by turning it either clockwise or anti-clockwise – the neck literally screws into the cup. It’s a great feature as once you get the skimmer set up approximately using the air valve, you can make very quick and easy fine adjustments just by turning the neck. As you’d expect, it takes a couple of weeks in a new tank before the skimmer gets working properly, and it’s probably not worth spending too much time adjusting it until the bio-load has stablised.

So is it the skimmer any good? Well, the only noise you get from it now is the sound of the bubbles rather than any loud pump noise. As for performance, it really is excellent, whether you’re after the thick, brown smelly muck or wet skim. It’s worth taking the time to tweak it to perfection once the tank has been running a few weeks, but the adjustable neck then makes keeping it fine-tuned a doddle. The skimmer is so efficient that you won’t run it with the valve right open – the cup would fill within a few hours – but even with it fully open I didn’t experience any microbubbles in the tank.

The manual recommends emptying the skimmer cup daily, but to be honest it’s so big that you could probably go several weeks before you needed to. That said, it’s worth doing at least weekly to clear any accumulation off the neck to keep it running at it’s best. Emptying the cup isn’t quite as straight forward as the original Max take-it-off-clean-it-put-it-back-on as the airlines need to be disconnected and the extra height and width means you need to draw the whole skimmer some way out of the water before you can easily remove the cup, and replacing it needs to be done without being able to see the neck to align it. At first I was ready to criticize the Max 250 for this, but to be honest after a couple of empties you soon get the hang of it and it really isn’t as onerous as it might sound.

Noise

So, how noisy/quiet is this thing? Well 24/7 you’ve got 2 pumps running and the skimmer; during lights-on you’ve got 4 hood fans (2 at each side), and optionally you’ve got the two auxiliary fans if you need a bit of additional cooling. The loudest component is the skimmer, although it’s much quieter than the original Max and it’s the sound of bubbles you hear rather than the pump. The lighting fans give you a gentle, but audible “whoosh”, which more or less doubles in volume if you turn the cooling fans on. Finally, the two pumps themselves are practically silent. There can also be some noise from water falling through the skimmer gate, depending on how you have it adjusted, but you don’t tend to hear this unless you turn the skimmer off. It’s not really possible to give a meaningful assessment of overall noise, so the best I can offer is to say that you can certainly hear the Max 250, but it’s not as invasive as the original Max and I don’t think you’re going to get quieter without an external sump stuck in a cabinet.

Summary

If you’re expecting the Max 250 to be just a stretched version of the 130, then you’ll be surprised. Whilst keeping the classic design of the original, the 250 takes things to another level, and as you assemble it you find yourself thinking “this is a serious piece of kit”. It has a real size and presence about it, and it’s hard to believe that it’s not even a metre wide. It’s a fantastic looking tank, and I can’t fault any of the components or their performance.

So how does it compare to the competition? I’m going to re-use an analogy I used when I reviewed the original Max. The Max 250 is what Apple is to a PC. It’s beautiful, it just works, and it doesn’t need to be modified. That certainly seems to be the design spec, but I do think the last part of that may put a few people off – whilst it doesn’t need to be modified, some people will want to modify none the less and Red Sea have rather limited the options, not least by making it impossible to fit a sump in the cabinet in the way they have partitioned it. Let me stress that you don’t need an extra sump – that’s what the back of the Max is all about, but for some enthusiasts a traditional large-volume under-tank sump is a personal “must-have”. Nevertheless, it’s good to see that simple additions like chillers or reactors have been well catered for.

Compared to the “entry level” market, then there’s probably a price premium over a solution involving separate components bought together with a new tank on a Sunday afternoon in the local garden centre, but I think that premium is going to be worth it for the aesthetics, the ease of use and assembly, and the peace of mind that the components were designed to work together.

At the other end of the market, people already have very established ideas and firm favourites. For some, there’s also an elitism about how many additional pieces of kit one person can add and how many dozens of power sockets you need, and this isn’t really the market this product is aimed at. However, for the hobbyist who’s primary interest lies with the livestock rather than having every piece of equipment going, I think the Red Sea Max 250 offers everything that any other premium brand set-up does, with unbeatable looks to boot.

Pros

Fantastic looking aquarium
Easy to set up and use
High quality construction and components
Truly a complete solution

Cons

Pricier than some alternative set-ups
Design limits possibilities for positioning of aquarium
Skimmer can be awkward to access for shorter people when adjusting or emptying
Powerful pump outlets need to be carefully directed