Skimz SK181 Review

[gregzz4]

The noise I heard from my pump back in June went away pretty quickly after replacing the impeller ...

I believe the OP has since sold his unit so I want to add some info for others looking through this thread

I've had this unit running for 7 months with a light bio-load on my 75g, with a total of 110g water
Since I bought it, I've installed the upgraded impeller
The new impeller resolves the re-start issues with older production releases
This is the impeller that came with the unit I bought that was sold around May 2011, and had re-start issues

Note how the tips are uniformed



This is the upgrade impeller that stops a re-start issue
Note the changes in the tip design









I've not been disappointed with this skimmer's performance, but I made one mistake with my sump
My DT drains to my skimmer section, before my filter socks. This causes the skimmer to become dirty enough to impede it's performance
Today, after wondering why my skimmer would only run 9 turns on the gate valve ( instead of 10 ) without overflowing, I cleaned out all the detritus etc and it's back to pulling as it should
I did not find anything inside, so suffice it to say this unit is sensitive to buildup

I am very happy with it and have no plans to replace it, unless I come across a very cheap Vertex Alpha Cone