Edmonton Freshie walking the plank, Any advice to ease the wallet/headaches :)

[mike31154]

Yep, the skimmer game is a tricky one with plenty of "innovations" coming along frequently, some worthwhile, some not so much. It's a hot topic of discussion but there have been a few recent studies that show there's no significant difference in performance between some of the newer technologies & the older ones. There's definitely a threshold where the cost of innovation & material outweighs the claimed performance increase. If cost is no object, knock yourself out, but I'm on a limited budget & have found my old school, wooden air diffuser driven, counter current model to work quite nicely. Of course for a 300 gallon heavily stocked system you'll need something fairly large, but that doesn't mean it has to break the bank. Even the older technologies can be adapted to large skimmer requirements. If I'm not mistaken, contact time between water & bubbles is one of the major factors affecting performance. This means either a very tall skimmer (not an option with sump in cabinet under display) or the shorter, more powerful recirculating type skimmers. This also means more electricity and potentially noise.