CSC 250 Review

[noy]

Bought this last week at reefsupplies.ca thought i share my thoughts for everyone's benefit. Price was $499. The dimensions are 9.2"x 9.2 and 21.9" high. The collection cup is about 4.5" high (so as far as fitting it in a sump you need to clear about 17"). It has a sicce PSK1200 pump which has a rated intake of 840l/h (222 gal). Its rated for 300g. I looked at the new Vertex, Reef Octupus but settled on this relatively unknown (to me or anyone I know) skimmer. I really liked the PSK1200 pump and this was one of the few skimmers with it.

IMG_4398 by fydordostoy, on Flickr

IMG_4397 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
The plastic and acrylic has a heavy solid feel to it and it just feels very solidly put together. Mine came with the pump and bubble plate already assembled. So all i had to do was connect the air intake chamber, airline and gate valve for the unit. You can see above the bubble plate is assembled incorrectly - no big deal. The bottom of the unit/base is held together by 4 plastic thumbscrews. Once you disassemble them you can remove the bottom and get at the pump. You would clean the unit the same way. I read that the pump intake blocks one the thumbscrews but the pump intake just pops off so you can get to the screws easily.
Close up of the collection cup

IMG_4396 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
Underside of Collection Cup showing teeth that fit onto body of skimmer. Its a simple push and turn onto fitting o-rings.

IMG_4395 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
The mouth of the skimmer

IMG_4394 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
Air Intake Chamber

IMG_4392 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
- top of chamber has air intake outlet you can connect an ozone generator or use tubing to draw air from a "fresher" source (less CO2)
Closeup - Pump Intake

IMG_4391 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
- the outer piece fits through the body of the skimmer and onto the pump inside.
The pump

IMG_4388 by fydordostoy, on Flickr

Gate Valve (adjustment knob at top)

IMG_4390 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
Gate valve itself

IMG_4389 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
- turning the knob moves the gate value up and down. This part of the skimmer is pretty flimsy. I find the lock screw keeps coming loose at the top.
The most disappointing part was the my skimmer came with a manufacturing defect - you will see the crack inside the collection cup. It doesn't affect function at all but nonetheless its bad Quality Control.

IMG_4387 by fydordostoy, on Flickr

IMG_4386 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
- I called reefsupplies.ca and Ray there was really good - took care of it and they will ship a new cup but i have to ship old one back (vendor will take care of shipping). I have to say if i have to pay 1 cent extra to remedy this it will be a problem but lets wait and see.

I put the skimmer in a 10 gallon tank and let it run for about a day with tank water. This was to minimize the break-in period once I put it into sump. I have a fairly large bioload so didn't want to chance not having a skimmer in action. I saw it was fractionating after a day so I put it into the sump.
Here it is after I put it into the sump. I took the top cover off for the photo.

IMG_4670 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
Another shot

IMG_4674 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
Here is the pump showing the microbubbles generated.

IMG_4675 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
Collection Cup after about an hour in my sump. Foam fractionation already.

IMG_4669 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
And this is the collection cup after 1 day of skimming

IMG_4676 by fydordostoy, on Flickr
Conclusions
As far as actual functioning I couldn't be happier with how quickly the skimmer broke-in and it seems to be skimming pretty good (right now i clean the cup daily and get about the same as above picture). The PSK1200 pump is VERY QUIET and moves a large volume of water through.
I'll wait and see how CSC handles the quality problem and this will go a long way towards whether I would recommend them. I really think if you spend $500 for a skimmer you shouldn't have to settle. It really isn't too much to ask for a piece of equipment without any defect.
As far fine-tuning. This is a combination of adjusting the gate valve, air intake control screw and height of water. If you open up the gate too much then you will see the pump creating a lot of turbulence that pushes the mircobubbles out of the gate and into your sump - so you have to be careful about that.
I'll report on things as I continue to use this but so far so good (except for the defect).