Prizm Skimmer

[Samw]

Originally posted by sumpfinfishe:
Hello gang! I just started hanging out here as I could no longer put up with some of the *#?%! at
reef central.My first ? for you all is: I just picked up a new Prizm protein skimmer last week as I was using an old antique sanders model. Does anyone have any input on my new Prizm?
Thanks,sumpfinfishe

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sorry, this isn't the answer you're looking for. But I'm curious, what is the issue with Reef Central that is bothering you? Just curious. Thanks.

Ooops. Never mind. I didn't finish reading the thread. But now, there's no way to delete my post. The checkbox to delete is gone.

[ 08 September 2002, 00:24: Message edited by: Sam W ]

[sumpfinfishe]

Hey Canadian, so you think you know it all, well I have one piece of advice for you- you can't even give any kinda advice when you don't know the whole story. Just because a few reefers vented on my setup, oh well- my heart is broken! That's not why I left, more so for the fact that to many people judged before they listened-like you!
My reef is running just fine, my single tang is healthy and growing each and every day. My older tang was given to my roomie who has a 60 gl. And yes there is such a tank as a 27 gl-it's the same as a 33 except just a tad less in height. Getting back to the tang issue- I can and have kept tangs in my reef for up to two years before I trade them with friends or my l.f.s. for smaller juviniles. I would never keep a fish longer if I knew I was impeeding it's health or growth rate. So if you wanna pick a fight there Mr. "jump to the gun" I suggest you look some place else as I'm not gonna waste any more time with your quick without thinking comments. Instead I am here on this forum to help and get to know fellow reefers who have more to do than you.

[Doug]

Guys,
Please keep the response civil. There is no doubt this is a topic, that leads to heated posts.

If its going to be discussed here, please keep personal attacks out.

I personally know how hot these threads get, :rolleyes:

[Canadian]

And here's the problem with this hobby and people like you: You treat living animals in the same manner you would treat a vehicle - purchase one and trade it in when it no longer suits your needs.

There was no gun to jump. You "had" ;) 2 Regal Tangs in the same 27 gallon aquarium. That was all I commented on. Yet, you got your knickers in a bunch and went off about the fact that a 27-long does exist, and blah, blah, blah. Your quick defense leads me to believe that you have a pretty good idea that what you're doing isn't right, and your omission and deletion of the picture of your tank with 2 Tangs helps to reinforce that.

2 Tangs

[naesco]

Sumpfinfishe

I don't know how to tell you nicely as most reefers would get the messages you have received from members of this and reefcentral.
The fact is keeping these tangs in a 29 is not acceptable. Please return the fish to a LFS now or trade them from this board.
Many reefers will be happy to help you and you can share your knowledge with us.

Do you get the message now?
Thank you

[Mak]

Originally posted by sumpfinfishe:
I would never keep a fish longer if I knew I was impeeding it's health or growth rate.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You claim you have been Reefing for 5 years, and in that time your telling us you had NO knowledge that Tangs get large :rolleyes: .

With that said... I think you have a nice little tank [img]smile.gif[/img] . Now you just need to get rid of that last tang and be carefull with that Carpet Anenome ( BTW- What kind of lighting do you have? ). I'm sure there are people on this board that will help you find a Home.

Peace

[sumpfinfishe]

Thanks for "all" your input on my "Prizm Skimmer"!
To all of those concerned reefers out there that have not visited my home page, I no longer have two regal tangs now. The small tang that I have now will be given to my roomate once it appears to be to large for my tank. Keeping a regal in my reef is fine as it has an entire 3 feet in lenght to swim about, oh I guess I should trade it in to my l.f.s. so they can sell it to someone who has a 72gl- wow that foot is going to make a serious difference I bet-not. I don't know how many of you have been snorkeling or diving in Fiji, but i can speak from personal experience that this type of tang usually occupies about a two foot territory in a large head of coral. It would be nice to have some more input on my new skimmer rather than a few reefers blowing steam! :D

[Delphinus]

The Prism is an adequate skimmer, with a half-decent effectiveness considering its price. That said, they are only good for very small systems and I find mine to be very high maintenance compared to my counter-current airstone skimmer, which I find to be just as effective. But it really is too high a maintenance item for my liking. My two complaints about the Prism are thus: 1) My U-tube loses siphon daily. I have to reprime the U-tube every day. Every day. Ok, so all I have to do is pinch off the airline for about 5 minutes (or attach it to the priming terminal on the collection cup), so it's not like it's a huge amount of work, but I am rather annoyed that I have to do this every day. Did I mention that I have to do this every day. 2) It seems to need to be kept insanely clean. For the first few months it was an awesome skimmer (because it was very clean for having been new). Nowadays with snails, feather dusters, chitons, etc. making their way into the skimmer, it needs to be cleaned out very often. And I mean, take it to the car wash and pressure blast it kind of clean. Because when it is not clean, it does not skim. I have to clean out my skimmer every 4-5 days like this otherwise it's basically not skimming my tank. By comparison, I have two other tanks, one is run by a RSB hang-on and the other an airstone counter-current type. I have to clean those skimmers out about once a month to my once a week for the Prism. Yeah, they get major dirty during that time but the nice thing is that they still perform when slightly dirty whereas the Prism seems to not be able to handle the slightest amount of slime buildup anywhere within itself (including the overflow).

Now, these might be minor complaints. I don't know, it's going to depend on an individual's tolerances. If I had just the one tank, I might tolerate better the increased maintenance schedule. But with three tanks I look for every shortcut I can take otherwise all I'd ever be doing is fussing with this or that (once in a while I like to just sit back and enjoy the tanks for what they are without having to mess about with something or other! [img]smile.gif[/img] )

So .... in conclusion, it is a "not too bad" skimmer given its low-end price (it was cheaper than my airstone counter-current skimmer which I bought used!). There are days I think "yeah this skimmer is OK." Then there are days I want to throw it in the trash. So ... ultimately, I myself wouldn't get another one.

If you've already plunked down the cash for one, don't despair. Mine was a good skimmer for the first little while. It's just that it's not aging gracefully. But if you keep it clean (and I mean CLEAN) you will not be too unhappy with it.

A year from now though you may be looking at a Berlin or a Precision Marine 426 or heck, even a EuroReef and you will be thinking "oh man .... I want one of those." Of course, that's the nature of this hobby altogether though, so that's really not saying much. ;)

cheers

[ 09 September 2002, 08:37: Message edited by: delphinus ]

[sumpfinfishe]

Thanks for the info delphinus! Yikes I don't know if I like what I hear. The reason why I got away from the sanders model was because of weekly cleaning of the whole unit too! I wasn't being cheap either as two l.f.s. told me that this skimmer would be ideal for a tank my size and that anything else would be just overkill. Time will tell I guess.

[Delphinus]

Since our conversation I've been thinking about this skimmer some.

Realistically all my comsplaints can be traced back to one design shortcoming: the reaction chamber is too small.

What happens for me (and others) is that you need to crank back the water volume to something like "5% open" in order to prevent the air/water foam from rising too high in the collection cup and spilling over into the cup with perfectly clean water as skimmate.

But the problem for me is that the water flow is so cranked back that air can get into the U-tube, and breaks the siphon within a matter of 12 hours or so. A skimmer is no good if it shuts itself down, no matter how good that foam is.

Thus, there are two modifications I will suggest for anyone who has a Prism and isn't 100% happy with it.

The first is the easy one. Put an airline valve on the air intake. Turn up the water volume, and slowly increase the air until you get some foam. Just don't overdo the air, or else you'll overwhelm that little reaction chamber. Here is the key. You need a top-quality air valve. Those plastic cheapy jobs aren't going to give a fine enough adjustment. What will happen is suddenly they allow too much air in as you slowly open them ... and then the fine adjustments are defeated and the skimmer overwhelms itself.

The only thing I don't really like about this idea is that any time you allow more water through the skimmer, the higher the water column will rise into the reaction chamber, thus giving you less volume in that chamber for good foam production.

This leads me into my second idea (which I haven't tried yet, because I'm going to give idea #1 a solid week or two to see how well it plays out long-term).

The problem is the reaction tube is too small. So, why not extend the reaction tube? It would just be a matter of finding a tube of the appropriate diameter, and you can place this "riser extender" between the skimmer and the collection cup. Perhaps a length of gravel vacuum tubing would work (I haven't looked into this yet). If I try this then I'll post some pictures in the DIY forum. But this way we could have the water AND air fully open. I figure that so long as the tube is long enough the contact time should be long enough and give a really high density skimmate. It wouldn't look too pretty but then again function is more important than esthetics the way I see it .. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 13 September 2002, 09:23: Message edited by: delphinus ]