diy beckett skimmer

[Dez]

I only own one skimmer that I made myself. The rest I have sold. I think I've made just over 70 skimmers about a dozen calcium reactors and a few kalk reactors. I used to make them just for fun and test them out and people would come over and just buy em... More of a challenge than anything. Thanks for the link.

dez

[Buccaneer]

That " test " is not fair to the different types of skimmers ... they are using 3 different types at a time against each other ... they actually need to compare all the same type against each other and actually run tests for P04, nitrates etc ... these guys are basically " looking " at the skimmate to determine a winner

Their " conclusions " as it stands wont tell you very much at all about the individual skimmers and their effectiveness

[Delphinus]

And are they running the skimmers simultaneously on the same tank?

If so that's a completely rigged outcome ... two skimmers on the same water does not equate to "twice the skimming" ... the more powerful will outcompete the other. Thus it would look like some are not performing at all, which might lead you to conclude the skimmer is not good, which is not a fair assessment.

Richard Harker (I think .. maybe I'm wrong) once wrote an article about how he used two skimmers on his 4000g tank. When the smaller skimmer would actually start to produce skimmate, he would take that as an indicator that the first "needs to be cleaned".

[JohnM99]

Seems to me like a very good experimental design - each of the skimmers is relatively small compared to the tank, in theory all 3 are not enough to rid the water of all skimmable material, and each is operating in parallel.
How does that not make sense?

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by JohnM99

Seems to me like a very good experimental design - each of the skimmers is relatively small compared to the tank, in theory all 3 are not enough to rid the water of all skimmable material, and each is operating in parallel.
How does that not make sense?

It would actually take longer to run a accurate test ... for starters you cant run 3 of them at the same time as Tony has already stated

next you would have to leave the system skimmer-less for the same amount of time in between testing skimmers ( say 2 weeks ) and make sure that the exact same amount of food/light etc was affecting each test ... then test each skimmer individually ... also some skimmers take longer to " dial-in " and require specific pumps to operate at optimum efficiency

Then they would have to setup proper tests before, during & after the experiment so that you can have a quantitative analysis of the results.

There is probably more that could be done to make it fair but that is all I can think of this late at night

The " test " as it stands is a joke and not worthy of merit or consideration other than for the enjoyment of those doing it and the throngs of RC back clappers.

[JohnM99]

Your objections would make sense if they were going to compare skimmers between groups - but all they are going to do is pick the one that works the best within a group in terms of skimmate. Then they are going to do the same for each group. Granted, it is a bit crude, but at least it is do-able. You would need siginificant funding and a huge lab to do a really sophisticated study, but all they are trying to say is which skimmer works better under those conditions.

They are going to have trouble if they just compare volume of skimmate, and it would be better if they actually analyzed the content.

But, in my hours on the web trying to find objective evidence of which skimmer works well or better than others, I have come up pretty empty. Do you know of any good trial between skimmers? If you read around it is pretty hard to do any better than subjective impressions. I would really like to read some harder data, and if you know of any, that would be really appreciated.

Almost all of the information on boards like this or others is someone saying "yeah, I used it - it (fill in the blank - rocks or sucks).

It does seem to be a group of friends having some fun, as you say. I don't think the results will be publishable in a scientific journal, but I think it will be quite interesting.