POLL : Reeflo Orca 250/ BK Super Marine 250 / BK Super Marine 300

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by sphelps

Also I can't believe someone would actually want one of those Orcas, seriously bad idea.
For the extra $400 you could have gotten the BK 250, what a shame.

Well, if it were me, I would have made the same choice. The BKs are way over priced for a bunch of plastic glued together, and the fact that I don't have $400 bills growing on trees would have been a big factor...

Congrats, Chin, on a good choice...

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Well, if it were me, I would have made the same choice. The BKs are way over priced for a bunch of plastic glued together, and the fact that I don't have $400 bills growing on trees would have been a big factor...

Congrats, Chin, on a good choice...

I would say the BKs are under priced and the orca is overpriced, the BKs use CNC machining and nothing but top quality plastic built like a rock. Nice and thick as appose to as thin as possible. The orca looks like it's ready to break before water hits it, even the pictures on the website show some parts of the skimmer are crooked. Maybe $400 is a lot but when you're already spending $1200 it's not that bad and actually I believe it's only $300 to correct myself.

[Delphinus]

I don't doubt the quality of BK's at all, but .. and maybe I'm just the odd one out on this .. but ... everytime I hear about how well they are put together and how beautiful the seams are, I feel it's like saying "I'm going to buy a Porsche because the fenders are attached to the frame with really nice fasteners." Beyond that it shouldn't fall apart given reasonable use, it's a detail I really don't care about in a skimmer and it alone doesn't justify the cost to me. For me the considerations are performance, reliability, ease of use, size, and the balance between up-front cost versus total cost of ownership. Beyond that I don't really care if it's made of acrylic, glass, PVC or something else, or how pretty the welds are. But again maybe it's just me.

But having said that, I know that the BK is an overacheiver in those other categories. So for me it comes down to the energy usage: I'd consider it if my electrical footprint gets reduced. But then it comes down to what kind of timeframe the savings compensate for the initial up front cost. If we're talking about 5 years or beyond, you have to take into consideration that tanks with that kind of longevity are fairly rare things...