To Cone or not to cone ?
 

Hey guys and gals need some input with investing in a new skimmer. Please enlight me with the benifits of a cone skimmer vs your traditional style.

I am buliding a 180 gal FOWLR Angel tank and trying to figure out which route to go.

I think the main benefit to running a cone skimmer is a smoother transition of the bubbles from the main body of the skimmer into the neck. I read through a thread on this topic on RC and the just of it was that not all of the bubbles rising towards the neck in a traditional skimmer make it into the neck due to hitting the "transition" area and popping. However, in a cone skimmer, this problem is avoided due to having no sharp transition from the skimmer body to the neck. How much more efficient (if any) cone skimmers are than traditional skimmers is still up for debate.

I decided to upgrade to a Royal Excusive/Vertex Alpha 250 cone skimmer a few months back and couldn't be happier. It seems to pull out just as much if not more skimmate than my previous beckett style skimmer at 1/4 of the power consumption. Plus it runs much quitier than my old beckett as well.

+1

I run a SWC cone skimmer and it works great, pulls out tons of skimmate, runs quiet, and doesn't use up a ton of power.

I decided to upgrade to a Royal Excusive/Vertex Alpha 300 cone skimmer a few months back and couldn't be happier.

It seems to pull out more skimmate than my previous ASM G5 skimmer at 1/4 of the power consumption. Plus it runs much quieter than my old ASM G5 with absolutely no bubbles in the sump.

Tom R