Rio Nano-Skimmer

[kwirky]

lol how shoddy. It was only $30. That explains everything :D. I bought it out of curiosity, and thought it might speed up the cycling of about 15 lbs of liverock I bought. Yeah right. I'm not going to refund it. Instead I'm keeping it as a momento to remind me not to buy stupid stuff again heh.

First of all, the "skimmer" walls are panels that slide down into the HOB filter. Bubbles escape the riser tube, and instead collect along these slide in walls, and not the riser tube.

Second, tuning the bubbles is VERY hard. You have to open it up enough for a stream of bubbles, but if you open it just a touch too much, the siphon is broken and the pump stops bringing up water all together.

Third, it's VERY noisy. extremely noisy. noisier than my mag 7 (in dire need of cleaning), rattling on a sump floor. It's collection cup even makes it worse, and ressonates the noise like a guitar body.

Fourth, it's hanging part is so narrow, it didn't fit on the plastic frame of the tank. I had to cut some of the frame back to get it on. I think it's only for hanging on bare glass.

Fifth, it's all very low build quality. An aquaclear of the same price is much higher quality than one of these. Even though there's extra plastic in these than an aquaclear the same price, it's still very low quality. The O ring around the pump wasn't even seated properly when I bought it and it leaked water from the get-go. Had to fight with it, because the O ring was too big.

Basically, I'd only recommend it for a 5 gallon tank or smaller. And with the noise it outputs, I don't know many people who'd want one on a small tank in their office or something. It's a pain to tune without stopping it from working all together. Save yourself the grief, and just do the "nano sized" 1 gallon water change each week :).

If you REALLY want a nano-sized skimmer, there are threads around the net of people modifying their aquaclears into air driven skimmers that work much better than one of these.

[christyf5]

Aww nuts, I bought one of these when they first came out. Right after, I upgraded my lighting to a Hang on Coralife HQI and didn't have the room on the back of the tank for the skimmer. Now I'm thinking about downgrading my lighting to put the skimmer on. I was hoping this thing was relatively quiet.

[kwirky]

Aww nuts, I bought one of these when they first came out. Right after, I upgraded my lighting to a Hang on Coralife HQI and didn't have the room on the back of the tank for the skimmer. Now I'm thinking about downgrading my lighting to put the skimmer on. I was hoping this thing was relatively quiet.

I found on google somone talked about various mods that have been done on this "skilter". Driving it with a wooden airstone, instead of the venturi/needlewheel eliminates most of the noise.

here are some mods you can do to it:
http://home1.gte.net/rhe1/nanoreef/comingsoon.htm

[christyf5]

Great, yet another skimmer that needs "modding" :rolleyes:. Your suggestion of the gallon a week water change seems more enticing. However my laziness with the nano tank seems to be escalating, necessitating the skimmer. It seems I'm very good at creating algae factories :razz:

[Shrimpy]

I just bought one this week. Mine's skimming quite well actually after tinkering with it for a bit. I like it and for $30 I can't complain. :)

[Phanman]

I have one too, its actually not that noisy and i have my 10gallon in my bedroom, still sleep like a baby.

You do need to "tinker" with the venturi quite abit to get the noise down, and the right size of bubbles, but again, for $30 i think its a great investment.

Also mine hangs fine over my plastic frame, didnt need to cut it at all to get it to sit properly.

[dolphinpoint]

I have one too on a 10 gallon. It is skimming well and is very quiet, similar to the noise level of an aquaclear. I think it is great value for 30 bucks.

[skylord]

I bought one for my frag tank and was impressed. It took about 2 days to break in and has worked well and the noise isn't that bad with the one I got. The thing most troubling is its lack of tolerance with the water lever. I have to keep the tank topped up more often than I did before the skimmer.

Scott

[04scoobysti]

I have one of these too. Took a week or so of tinkering to get it the way i liked it. I have it on a All-Glass 10g and there is more than enough room for it to sit on the edge (almost too much). The only problem with this skimmer (besides the noise) is that the micro bubbles may get by the trap and filter and find there way into the tank. I had this problem for 2 weeks, then it misteriously cured itself.
I've heard of a mod to cut down on the noise by superglueing the needle wheel to the shaft. Haven't tried it yet, but i plan on it when i switch tanks.

[Phanman]

Are you talking about gluing the needlewheel to the plastic shaft that goes through it??? or...

[04scoobysti]

I was trying to look where i read that, but from what i understand its glueing it to the drive shaft that runs thru the magnet. Im definitly going to look into it more when i get home from work, as i would love to quiet this thing down.

[Phanman]

I thought it was gluing it to the magnet itself on the earlier models when the skimmer first came out. I was going to do this but when i took it apart it was already attached to the magnet. So i thought Rio had made this mod themselves for newer skimmers. Let me know what u find.

Ok just found it... looks like its to the magnet itself and this is already done by Rio.

http://canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=28861&highlight=rio+nano+skimmer

[04scoobysti]

I'll have to check on mine when i swap tanks, hopefully its not attached so i can mod it, and hopefully decrease the volume (its not that bad, its in my bedroom and it dosent bother me at all) but it would still be nice to be a little quieter. :P Thanks for the link too, thats the thread i was refering to.

[Midknight]

I picked one up used but with no manual.
Anybody have one I can borrow? :biggrin:
Not sure if I have it put together correctly or not.

[BMW Rider]

I've had one on my QT tank for a couple months and its a great little unit. It pulls quite a bit of skimmate once you get it running and set. Yes, deffinitly glue the impeller to the magnet. Runs whisper quiet afterwards. For $30, its a heck of a litttle unit.

[kwirky]

maybe mine's not put together properly? Those who have their working, what kind of bubble flow do you get out of it? I know it "doesn't work" for the first 24 hours or so, but mine just kinda fizzed. It didn't bubble at all.

I'm thinking the unit could be quieted down by cutting some of the collector lid out, possibly at the area where the air intake is? Eliminating the acoustics of the skimmer collector.

I would like to get it working, as it seemed a good idea to help cycle liverock a few pounds at a time.

[andresont]

maybe mine's not put together properly? Those who have their working, what kind of bubble flow do you get out of it? I know it "doesn't work" for the first 24 hours or so, but mine just kinda fizzed. It didn't bubble at all.

I'm thinking the unit could be quieted down by cutting some of the collector lid out, possibly at the area where the air intake is? Eliminating the acoustics of the skimmer collector.

I would like to get it working, as it seemed a good idea to help cycle liverock a few pounds at a time.
Re bubles in the first chaimber : mine had a buffle upside down . Change the position and this will help, also if you take it appart and put all parts back togeher tightly it will be quiet-er.
Air intake noise can be lowered by installing a 35mm film container (with holes in the top cover) on top of intake i did that on Deltec MCE600 and Rio both air intakes are quiet now

[kwirky]

Air intake noise can be lowered by installing a 35mm film container (with holes in the top cover) on top of intake i did that on Deltec MCE600 and Rio both air intakes are quiet now

I'll be doing that on my RS135, too. thanks for the tips :)

[andresont]

I'll be doing that on my RS135, too. thanks for the tips :)
Also if you have dry air (unlike RioNano) you could hide some air filter media inside this 35mm container to filter out dust = phosfates.

[Shrimpy]

Here is a manual I scanned. If you can't make it out let me know and I will rescan it with a better dpi. :)

I found the most important step is to set the venturi for a height of 1 5/8" from the lowest postion possible and then make small adjustments in height from there. Make sure to let it run a mininimum of 1 hour to see what kind of skimmate you get after a height adjustment of the venturi. :wink:

I too am using it to cure my new 10g tank. All I have is live rock and sand because it is still cycling. It pulled out some nice green tea colored skimmate for a day and now nothing which is normal seeing there is no real bioload yet.

[Midknight]

Here is a manual I scanned. If you can't make it out let me know and I will rescan it with a better dpi. :)

Will take it to work and see how it prints there and let you know.

And Thanks lots.

[andsoitgoes]

this might help too:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=968288

[04scoobysti]

Im still getting Mirco bubbles with this skimmer and i have been running it for 6 weeks or so. Just took it off the tank for a good cleaning and added a piece of sponge to the last chamber to try to cut down on the bubbles, still bubbles this morning. I may have to retire this thing soon and go with an aqua-c if i dont get this fixed. Any ideas?