Max new Surface Skimmer

[redseasteve]

Hi, just wondere if anyone had picked up the latest copy of Marine World, which apparently featured a review of our forthcoming Max upgrade- the new surface skimmer? My MW copy hasn't arrived yet.

[poohpouri]

I have:fear:

[redseasteve]

Available soon- see Marine World for review plus there's a few posts on othe forums from reviewers.

[NDJ]

do you have a link for the reviews on other sites?

[mrfishy]

hi m8
if you go on reefsuk and find nano reef section reefer called nightfox has done great review of it with pictures etc
hope this helps
cheers
drew

[redseasteve]

I'm happy to send a pdf of the Marine World review if it helps. Just pm me with an email address. Cheers

[NightFox]

Hi,

I've been "test driving" one of these for the last few months, and mine is the online review that's been referred to here. To save you having to dig around for it, I've reproduced it here:

Review - Skimmer Box for Red Sea Max

One of my criticisms of the Red Sea Max has always been that the filter inlet grill on the back of the tank was mounted too low to allow effective surface skimming. You can choose to have the water level low enough for the grill to break the surface, which leaves the surface visible about ½cm or so below the top trim of the tank, which I always thinks looks very wrong, as if someone just can’t be bothered to keep their tank topped up (and I’ve found that the Max skimmer works best with the water level as high as possible). The alternative is to take the more aesthetic option of filling the tank so the surface is hidden behind the trim, but this means that the grill is now under the water and therefore there’s no surface skimming. Result = a thin film of dirt and waste matter soon collects over the surface which needs clearing every day or so. Yes, there is the adjustable gate that allows for a degree of surface skimming, but I always found this a finely balanced task that – as it states in the manual – is more for one-off surface skimming (i.e. 10 minutes or so to get the surface clear) rather than constant surface skimming.

As you may be aware, there’s a new, bigger Max on the way, and it’s good to see Red Sea have addressed this issue with a higher filter inlet. That’s fine and dandy for new owners, but what about us original Max buyers? Well, the news is good as Red Sea are soon going to be offering a filter box as an add-on for the original Max.

I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to test one of these over the last 6 months, so if you’re interested (and if you’re a Max owner you probably should be!), then let me give you my thoughts….

The filter box comes in two parts – first is a grill that is similar to the one that comes with the Max, except instead of having the adjustable gate fitted to it, it has a pair of slots with a wider hole in each of them that allows the filter box to slot onto it and then be slid up and down as required. The filter box itself is about 12cm wide, 8cm high and 8cm deep, although as it is formed in a kind of step shape, the bottom half is only about 4cm deep. The top 1cm of the box is slotted to form a comb through which the water will pass from the tank into the filter box.

Fitting is pretty straight forward. First, you need to remove the existing grill and gate, which is just a matter of sliding them up and out of the tank (you may need to remove the gate from the grill first), and then you simply slide the new grill into their place. I was told that I’d need to silicon this into place, but I actually found that the grill stays in place on its own, in fact I’d go so far as to say that it’s a better fit than the original. I guess some of that comes down to manufacturing tolerances though, so I can’t guarantee that that would be the case for everyone.

To fit the box, you simply locate the lugs on the back of the box into the corresponding holes of the new grill inlet and slide it up to the desired height. The only thing you’ll need to consider is that you need the appropriate clearance around the inlet to do this, so if you’ve got live rock or corals near the inlet you might need to do a bit of aquascaping to allow fitting. As it was, I just had enough room. I do have my LR quite high at the back though, so I wouldn’t have thought this would have been an issue for most people.

So as to the most important bit – how does it perform? Brilliantly. The box has the effect of just skimming the top cm of the water, and because the comb at the top of the box can be positioned much higher than the top of the original grill, you can now fill the tank a good half way up the top trim and still get effective and constant surface skimming. There are now two points of resistance for water flowing into the filter – the comb on the filter box and the new grill inlet, and the water drops progressively beyond each one i.e. the water level in the tank is higher than the level in the filter box is higher than the level in the filter. And this is a good thing, because the water level in the main tank and back filter area tends to self-regulate. What I mean is that when the overall water level drops (e.g. through evaporation), the drop tends to have the greatest effect in the filter box rather than in the tank or the main filter area. So, in simple terms, limited drops in the water level aren’t going to have any adverse effect on the tank’s appearance or require constant adjustment of the protein skimmer.

And on the subject of the protein skimmer, I’ve found that with the higher water levels that the skimmer box allows you to run the tank with, the protein skimmer works much more efficiently, and coupled with the fact that you’re constantly skimming the scum off the surface, I’m emptying far much more “good” skimate since I’ve been using the filter box than ever before. And as I said before, you’re not constantly having to adjust the air valve to allow for evaporation and top-ups as the level in the back stays much more constant.

Although the box lets you put much more water in the tank, I’d still say that there’s a maximum beyond which you may get some issues. With the skimmer box in its top position, it’s best to have the water level so that with the pumps running the level in the box is just below the top of the filter inlet grill. Any higher and things will still work well, but you’ll tend to get a thick surface layer of gunk building up within the box itself. Cleaning the filter box is pretty easy, the comb and inlet grill just need a quick scrub with a toothbrush (whilst still in the tank) when you do your routine tank maintenance.

Overall, I can’t fault this skimmer box. It’s far less intrusive than you might think considering its size, and it does what is should do extremely well. In fact, because of the combination of the comb and the grill, I think it actually works much better than if the original inlet grill had simply gone all the way to the top of the tank in the first place, in that it self-regulates the water level to a degree.

I’m told that the filter box will be available shortly, and based on my experience I would highly recommend it as it transforms the effectiveness of the tank. I don’t know how much the box is going to retail for, and I hope the price is sensible (especially as some might say that surface skimming shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place). Nevertheless, with the launch of the next generation Max on the horizon, it’s nice to know that us original Max owners haven’t been forgotten by Red Sea.

[NightFox]

I've posted some pictures of the skimmer box in my gallery if anyone's interested - I did try to post them in this thread, but without much luck!

[Fishman1908]

Here it is here.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a43/666Grizzly/MAX130Dsurfaceskimmer.jpg

Pm if you want to know anything else like costs, availability etc.

Robin