ATI Bubble Master Skimmer?

[mr. pluto]

Big Boy69 if you don't have a separate part in your sump
it would be best to make a skimmer chamber to keep the water height
constant. nothing fancy is really required, just rubbermaid in your sump with drain holes to keep in coming water from the overflow at a constant level. so if you turn off your main pump your skimmer wont over flow. (of course i'm assuming this is your 1st in-sump skimmer
)

[Big Boy69]

It's going to be housed in my 40g rubbermaid. That's where the one side drains into the basement. It keeps a constant level in there. It then overflows into my 100g rubbermaid.
I should be good.

Thanks for your help. Leaving now to go play!!

[flameangel88]

Due to my overstocking and the tank upgrade needed to wait a bit I had to go out add another or upgrade the skimmer first. I'd an opportunity to get a new BM 200(came with added gate valve) from another member here on RC at a great price.

My current 180g tank is in the living room and I promised my wife when we first moved in to setup the tank there till the basement project is done. I'd to minimize any accidental water leak so a sump was never in the equation. I make a stand for the BM to sit on in the tank but along the way I mis-calculated the height when I added support (using more Ts at the top) and now it sits in 6" of water instead of 7" that I intended. Too much work to pull it out for adjustment so I'll wait it out till when I move this to the basement.

So far after a week of use I'm very happy with the performance.

After 1 hour


after 1.5 hour


after 7 hours


sitting on a stand


after 30 hours


after 77 hours


time to clean the cups

[flameangel88]

I've this skimmer installed 16 days now and am very happy with the performance.

I get this much in the cup about every 2.5 days:

[moondoggy4]

Good to see that there are still believers in the BM two years ago they were all the the rage. With the new impellers, the Red Demon from Warner Marine and the purple impeller from ATB they should give a lot of good options now.

[chads120]

I've had a BM 160 for awhile and love it. I'm now upgrading to a 250. They are now making new aftermarket pinwheels for sicce pumps. They avoid the starting problem of meshwheels. I'm going to give them a try.

[kudora]

i have been running a BM 160 for several months, i just picked up a SWC cone mini, the mini has not gone on a system yet(breaking it in atm) but i can already tell i dont like the cup removal on it, the BM is so much simpler. BM is on my 40 frag, and the cone will go on my 84 gal DT.

[flameangel88]

chads120: please post results on your BM 250 upgrade.


I'd to empty the collection cup last night after collecting for 3.5 days.

I poured in 64oz and there was probably another 20oz or so left in the cup

[chads120]

I ordered two purple pinwheels from ATB. The skimmer and the wheels get here on tuesday. I will keep you guys updated. Like I said I have a 160 now. I am very happy with it, but it is a bit small for a heavy stocked 120. The 250 will be oversized but I heard that these pin-wheels pull a little less. But they are more relyable and I don't need it to be at max output. Plus I am vodka dosing and would like to shut it off for a couple hours after.

[chads120]

By the way flameangel88 that is some killer skimmate for 3.5 days. Dark and tons of it. I hope to the same results. I'm also thinking of making a collection container for it.

[coffey18]

i have the BM250 this skimmer kicks a.. just be sure to keep the water level constant it's a little tricky getting it dialed in but like anything else in this hobby be patient it will come.

[flameangel88]

I love the skimmer and it's pulling out a lot. I haven't seen water this clear in a long time and don't need to dose sugar or vodka.

The only problem I'm having with the skimmer is that it gets very sensitive right after feeding frozen and have to pour out 3 times before it settles down which I don't have to do with my other skimmers. Do you folks shut down your skimmer during feeding? If you do, how long do you shut it down for?

TIA!

Edit: The overflow after feeding didn't happen the first 12 or 13 days. It started out of the blue 2 days ago and I didn't change any of the frozen food. The only other thing I can think of is I clean the glass and scrub down the rocks couple of nights ago. Would this possibly cause the sensitivity change when compounded with feeding?

[chads120]

flameangel88 after adding my sanjay mix (self made frozen food) my 160's foam collapses for about 20 min then foams up big bubbles for 20-30 min. Then back to normal. I have talked to others in my local club and they say the same thing happens to there skimmers (not bubble masters). It does not overflow though. Now that I have the 250 with purple pin wheels I will be shutting it off after feeding for a couple hours. But it does the same. Small fine bubbles before adding food. Collapse. Big bubbles. Back to normal.

So far I like the 250. A lot bigger skimmer but still not that big of a footprint. I am going to give it a couple days to work in and for me to fine tune it before I can say how it works. I had no problem starting up the pumps with the new pinwheels. I haven't shut them off yet as I am giving them time to work themselves in. But my plan is to plug it into my acjr so I can hit the feed button and shut it off for a couple hours, then it will turn back on by it's self.

[flameangel88]

clads120, thanks for the update. I'd to dial down the output by 2 full turns to stop the overflow. Since I've slowly bringing it back up and now it's just about 3/4 turn less than before and last night I only shut the skimmer off for 30 minutes and no overflow afterward.

To give you an idea what you may look forward to after your skimmer breaks in.


Yesterday morning (this is about 2 days worth of skimmate)


Last night (2.5 days)


spilled a bit while pouring in


time for clean up

[reefer31]

Man, do you feed pure fish poo into your tank! Thats nasty skimmate juice!

[flameangel88]

Originally Posted by reefer31

Man, do you feed pure fish poo into your tank! Thats nasty skimmate juice!

Haha! I guess I've a bunch of eating machines.

[A sea K]

Originally Posted by kaserpick

Thanks for the input guys!

I'm also looking at the MSX cone skimmers. Any suggestions?

Which version? How large is your system?
I just picked up a used MSX2S and after a week am very pleased with the performance gain over my old Euro Reef RS 8-3. Not really a fair comparison but the cone is easily capable of producing 2X the skimmate yeild of the ER.
The biggest drawback to this skimmer is the Sicce pump, don't get me wrong, they are probably the best skimmer pump available in its size but they can be really finicky and as you know suffer from re-start problems. I'm very used to running these pumps so I already knew what I was up against. You can de-tune them with a pin wheel but the performance suffers a good bit.
The MSX1A is a totally different beast. A single Askol that is slightly throttled down so as not to overpower the body. This skimmer and my 2S are just about equal in performance according to the folks at MSX.
Pluses in my book for the 1A, single silent no hassle pump
Pluses on the 2S, performance match of the 1A with just over half the power consumption. Reasonably small size footprint for a large skimmer. I'm also reading where the Askoll pumps run hot so it may possibly contribute more heat to the system. This is just my thought and not verified by any means.
One negative someone else already mentioned and it pertains to all of the older MSX skimmers( IDK about the new release 250/300A) is the cup removal. I've never liked this system but am spoiled by my 1/4 turn ER skimmer so its easy for me to be judgemental.

[flameangel88]

After shutting off the skimmer for feeding this morning the pump won't restart but I had to run out. Is this restart going to be an ongoing issue? Anything I can do to resolve this besides not shutting off the pump during feeding? I hope all I need to do is take the pump out and move the shaft a bit to kick start it again.

Thanks for any help here.

[cobbobby]

It is most likely going to be a continued issue as mesh and sicce's are known for not starting. When i ran meshed sicce's i never shut down the skimmer, only a power outage would turn it off.

[flameangel88]

Originally Posted by cobbobby

It is most likely going to be a continued issue as mesh and sicce's are known for not starting. When i ran meshed sicce's i never shut down the skimmer, only a power outage would turn it off.

Thanks for the info. Any quick way to restart it or just have to take it apart?

Thanks!

[cobbobby]

If you can manually open up the volute intake just a pinch it may fire up, or try to twist the motorblock while its plugged in. If it starts to kick on blow in the venturi tube. If that doesn't work i'd suggest painting your face and doing a rain dance then try an hour later....this always worked for me : ) But seriously they can be a major pain. But if its clicking like its trying to fire up, just blow in the tube. If not and it just sits there try the other two moves.

[flameangel88]

Thanks. The sad part is the pump on the Tunze DOC 9010 stopped last week and I still didn't get around to that one yet but now i might as well work on both. When crap happen it sure come in bunches.

[_88]

I have a BM250 on my 210 and it is an awesome skimmer. Mine has the original mesh wheel pumps and sometimes when they restart they will make a rattling noise and do not start back up again properly. I find that if I push down on the top of the pump body a little bit they will usually start right up again (it's a tough angle for me to blow into the air line, but this seems to work well for others.) Once they start they run just fine for me though. I just have to check em if I kill the power for cleaning, etc.

[flameangel88]

I took the pump apart and got it to restart but it was barely pushing water out. Plug and unplug the whole unit and cleaned it inside out and still the same. The pump starts but not able to push water out. I remember hearing a vibration about 4-5 days ago but wasn't that loud so I didn't pay much attention to it. I'm pretty sure the pump is shot. Where can I buy a replacement pump (PSK 2500) that comes with the mesh? I'm going to bring it down to the lfs see if they can fix it but I need another pump.

Thanks for any help!

[unbreakable]

contact reefgeek, i contacted marine solutions about this and never got an email back, if i remember correctly, the price for 1 pump from reefgeek was about 150. I never got around to replacing the pumps on the BM250