Rio Nano Skimmer
 

Well nano keepers out there. There is a solution for skimming your under 20 gal tanks without spending $60+++ on a skimmer.

Enter the Rio Nano Skimmer. Interesting design, think of an aquaclear200 filter with and plastic rod in the intake tube. Needle wheel impeller and adjustable water intake, air intake and water outlet. Throw in a small carbon filter to polish the water and for $30CAD you have yourself a great little skimmer for your nano.

Bought one of these unit at Gold's aquarium in Calgary, on Saturday and after bringing it home, giving it a good scrubbing, set the nano up on the 8gal aquagiant cube.

Within 12 hours the skimmer was starting to produce bubbles that climb the neck on the chamber. A little bit of fine tuning and tonight after 36 hours running the skimmer is producing a light tea color wet skimmate. Little more tunning (ok honestly - just screwing around trying to figure out what works best on this unit:biggrin: ) and the bubbles are fairly consistentand a darker skimmate is starting to collect. Will check again tomorrow night to confirm I got the dark, dry skimmate I like to pull rom my tanks. No microbubbles from the skimmer into the tank, rare from a HOB type skimmer.

There are a few quirks to this skimmer. Like first off, you pull it from the box and notice a light oily film over the inlet tubes and collection cup. Easily fixed by a good scrubbing prior to setup. Getting use to the tunning has a learning curve but not as steep as the coralife super skimmers. Actually its really simple once yo get the hang of which adjustment has what effect. Second the needle wheel impeller is fairly noisy. I read this can be fixed but super glueing the impeller to the magnet shaft, but haven't done this yet (figure I will wait for the first scheduled cleaning to do this). AndyL may chime in here as he did the impeller mod. Last getting the right amount of water to bubbles to get the crap climbing the collection tube wall is annoying but once you get it set, you can pretty much ignore it.

Now AndyL, was having issues with the inlet tube losing water pressure. I have not had this problem, so its not all units. Mind you AndyL is known for being able to burn water, so its no suprise he found issues where most will not.:biggrin:

Side note the unit comes with a large collection cup, figure a little larger than the Remora Aqua C collection cup. This should help keep the water in the tank and not overflowed or flooded onto the floor, desk, counter, etc....

Quick summary: HELL of a bang for the buck.
You will not get better skimming or your nanos for less money than these little units. Added bonus can be used as a plain filter aswell. If you are looking for a cheap skimmer for your nano here it is. Prices should be around $30CAD.

Paul thanks for the excellent review.
My water volume has grown out of the nano range, but I'm sure this will be useful for a lot of the members here on the board.

- Chad

I've never set water on fire... Electrify it, yes, Use it to make sparks and pretty flames come out of power bars... Yes!

Couldn't retain suction, because I put it together as it came outta the box - just needed to rotate the base on the U-Tube, so the one wasn't blocked.

Gotta do the impeller mod - damn that's annoying! Superglue the magnet to the needlewheel; solves the noise.

(sorry bought the last one, dennis said he was getting more in)

No idea on performance, hasn't even been running 5 hours, and at least 4 of those it wasn't moving water.

Neat little unit - got a few mods planned already for it, going to add a valve to add fine adjustment to the air intake.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=968288

I got mine tonight, my initial impression was not so good. The intake design is very much like the one you see with the Prizim series, a U-tube with a little gate valve on it for control. You have to block the air tube to prime it and it's sensitive to water level changes, I really hated that about the Prizim.

Having set it up and messed with it a bit I like it a lot better, it's a well constructed unit and moves quite a bit of water. The gate valve is easy to adjust and once I put the extension tube on it primed really fast. I'm getting a little bit of micro bubbles but it's pretty good for brand new. I also didn't have the oily residue that JSTR describes, just gave it a rinse in some hot water.

Performance remains to be seen but I really think you can't beat this model for the price.

Hey guys, great reviews :biggrin:

Would anyone happen to have the dimensions on one of these as well as the depth for the "hangon" part of the skimmer (my nano has eurobracing)? I can't seem to find any info on the net for that kind of stuff.

Thanks! :biggrin:

And where in Vancouver can you find one?:mrgreen:

Heh, that too :biggrin:

Check the Reef Central thread Andy linked to, somebody posted a pic with the dimensions.

24 hours later... No skimmate, but foam is starting to make its way up the riser tube. Noticing a fair amount of microbubbles now - hopefully those go away once broken in - if not guess I'll be looking for some foam.

24 hours in and I've got a good cm or so of green tea looking skimmate and some nice dry foam going. Micro bubbles are gone too, I'm impressed.

72 hours in lots of light watery skimmate, lots of foam, no microbubbles.
Trying to fine tune to a good dark dry skimmate.

Good deal for $30. Not a perfect skimmer and easily out done by the really expensive skimmer. But damn for $30 its a great investment and can easily do a decent job on most small tanks.

Will keep trying to fine tune it and then will post results.

For all the vancouverites,you can get your Rio Nano skimmer from Hidden Reef
or J&L for now ,they should have them in stock by tomorrow,more stores to come soon.
Very compact unit ,we tested one ourselves ,quiet impressive for the price,It started skimming pretty quick.

hey guys how do you guys find the micro bubbles? is there any pouring back into the tank?

I had some at first bit it has cleaned itself up. I have not tried it with the carbon cartridge removed yet.

So it looks like I was right about the self priming. I had a power blip of some kind yesterday which isn't unusual in my building. It wasn't a major one as the UPS on my server didn't log anything but still enough to interrupt the skimmer and stop my newer Sieo. The skimmer wasn't able to restart the siphon on it's own but due to the design it doesn't seem to have suffered any damage.

Still though, $30? Definitely a good value.

We also have a couple instock.

http://oceanaquatics.com/store/produ...-Nano-Skimmer/

Wendell
www.oceanaquatics.com

Make sure you check out our "Electronic ONLY Boxing Day Sale"

Hi,
the Rio Skimmer would it be sufficent for a 28Gallon reef?
Christf5 have you got the one you purchased rnning yet?
I am contemplating one as I have a seaclone 100 altho it is working it doesn't fit my tank arrangement very well.
Jim

The Rio is only rated up to a 20 gallon tank. I am sure you can use it on any but I have no idea if it will be as efficient for ya.
By the way I highly recomend the impeler mod, really quiets down the unit.

I would doubt the effectiveness of this skimmer on anything over 5 gallons.

I got mine, the damned thing doesn't fit on one side though. They've made it rather awkward and I'm going to have to go to town on one side of it around the intake pipe. No problemo. I probably won't have it up and running until Wednesday though.

Does anyone know what the extra tube is for? Its about 4 inches in length and was just sort of "extra" in the box and doesn't seem to fit anywhere. I'm saddened to say I don't even know what half the parts are for this thing and the "manual" isn't much help :razz:

Mine is running on a 10 gallon nano cube and it does a fair job of it. Yes I will admit the remora pro does a better job but its also 6-7 times the price.

Christy that extra tube is an extention to the intake tube, not that one really needs it, I threw it out. Also I would crazy glue the impeller to the magnet shaft, it really eliminates the vibration noise these things make. And one last thing that little black plug on the inner section of the intake tube can also get thrown out as the skimmer does work better without it.

HTH

Thanks for the info! :biggrin:

Hey thanks for review, can you say that this skimmer is quiet?
can you put it in the bedroom?

Just grabbed one of these for my QT/frag tank this afternoon at Golds. Thanks for all the info on this unit, its a great find. Will have to do the crazy glue mod sometime, not a big deal though since its set up in the laundry room.

wow - this is fantastic. I've been getting frustrated with the lack of room in my 5.5 nano and this looks to be the solution to replace all the stuff I have running in there right now. Very nice, I couldn't find it on J&L's site, but I may hit OA to snag it depending on how the weekend goes.

How does everyone find the fact that it's so far UNDER the water level though? Does anyone use the Hagen skimmer attachment?

Haven't noticed it being an issue - no surface scum on my 3g. Mind you little skimmate of late either (might be time for a cleaning).

But think about your concern for a second, these spill water down onto the surface of the water, mixing the scum down into the water (where it can be picked up by the intake) It would likely be different if it was setup like a cannister filter where intake/outlets are both underwater.

I've had mine for about 2.5 months now. at first it worked fine then i took it apart and cleaned it. ever since then it stopped skimming. how is it that you tune your skimmer? what should i be looking out for when reassembling it?

The is an internal plate between the intake chamber and the main chamber.
Make sure it’s installed the “right way” to push the bubbled water in to the main chamber.
When adjusting the air intake make it to be just up a notch from closed position.
Feed protein based food, get rid of the fat based food (flakes).
Also I find it will skim better with water level up to the overflow ‘lip”.

ok heres how i set mine up maybe u can tell me if anything is wrong.

The divider to the left is pointing towards the right ----->
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/4121/p1050773jy7.jpg

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2415/p1050774wi9.jpg

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9757/p1050776sc1.jpg

Maybe you can tell me the best way to turn these knobs.

A and B. I know what B does but maybe you know something i dont.
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/3751/p1050779wg2.jpg


For the intake. Does the depth matter? I've just added the extension for my 10 gallon tank. If it too much depth?

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/3074/p1050780gh4.jpg

I know a number of you have been using this skimmer for the last little while. Im just wondering if you have any tips to get the dryist skimmate out of it?
So far I've been able to get stuff the thickness of tea out of it.

Everything looks right on the pics.
Mine skim's better with higher water level.
Deeper intake does not differ much IMO, Because its already submerged. but surface skimming is the best way to pull proteins.
Tube "A" : i find it better when its just a notch lifted from closed (down) position.
"B" in my case is fully open.
one more thing, make absolutely sure to insert intake "U" tube completely down to the pump intake seat and make it tight.

finally someone! thank you so much!
i think thats my problem its not tight. i opened the A knob a tab and now i m getting air bubbles everywhere. i cleaned my filter pad thing and still air bubbles. any suggestions?

You shouldnt be turning the A knob....what you want to do is very slighting pull the tube that comes out of A up to allow air to flow down the tube.

Wow it finally works!! Thank you so much!

I m getting lots of airbubbles does anyone know how to get rid of them? i tried everything in the operators manual and still bubbles.

Has anyone tried adding the aquaclear surface skimmer attachment?

I'm thinking of picking one up for mine to get surface skimming going as well.

Probably have to modify the tube a bit, but may not since it looks like a small diameter tube

Where can you get them? If they arent big I'd probably give it a try.

Any aquarium shop seems to have them about $12-14

Impeller Mod?
 

Hi,
Sorry to drag this thread up from the murky depths but how do I do the impeller mod to make it quiet?
Not entirely sure what to superglue and don't want to stick bits together.
Thanks
Greg

draging this thread up again i have just put aqua clear surface skimmer on this unit today. so far i have noticed a signifacant decline in the amount of clean wet skimmate. just ondering if anyoelse is tryingthis? thoughts?

PS i also have all water coming from overflow.