BM Skimmer Ratings

[intarsiabox]

Originally Posted by Potatohead

I would go with A5. It's nice to have a big skimmer but you also need a big bioload in that case, that's the whole point of a bigger skimmer. There's also a good chance the pump on the bigger one pushes way more water than your return pump which means the thing will be re-skimming already skimmed water all the time. I actually have that problem a little bit and wish I went with one step down.

Yes, I agree. With sumps the tanks have water volumes of about 60 - 100 gallons and while the A5 covers this range according to BM's specs, I'm concerned that their ratings are being overly generous like a lot of other skimmers claims. I'm curious to see if people are running the A5 or A8 (or their non-DC counterparts the curve 5 & 7) on similar sized tanks. If the A5 will do the trick then I will be happy to save the extra $100 difference!