Rio Nano-Skimmer

[kwirky]

lol how shoddy. It was only $30. That explains everything . 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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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" . 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

[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...