reefrookie379
Community Member
Has anyone tried out or currently running the internal protein skimmer Sicce released a few months back. Sicce shark 300 protein skimmer. Trying to find one is impossible . .
Sicce protein skimmer shark 300
- Thread starter reefrookie379
- Start date
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I want to try this too. I want to add a 300 to my 100 gal tank as a second skimmer just to run ozone on. My skimmer currently has a recirculating co2 scrubber attached and I don’t have space for a dedicated ozone reactor. This looks like it would be perfect for me
reefrookie379
Community Member
Came across this in my search for a 300 online. No idea who the seller is but looks like he has a lot of positive feedback .. check it out and look into it. Link below
Sicce Shark Skimmer 150 - Compact Ultra Quiet Internal Skimmer NOVELTY! | eBay
Shark SKIMMER 150 and Shark SKIMMER 300 are modern internal skimmers with a very compact and innovative shark design, for direct placement in a marine biotope. They are based on the latest developments and knowledge in the field of reef aquaristics and are designed for aquariums up to 150 and up...
www.ebay.com
Needle wheel skimmers are over priced and under rated. They use a pump impeller to fractionate the air which does not move water well.
Recirculating needle wheel are a slight step up due to increased dwell time in reaction chambers.
Something for you to read BEFORE you spends hundreds on a junk skimmer.
THE CURRENT TECHNOLOGY OF NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS (which is about 25 years old) IS LESS EFFICIENT THAN WHAT EVERYONE USED TO MAKE: VENTURI PROTEIN SKIMMERS, where the venturi is placed after the pump, not before the pump. And that change also led to the cone-shapes and bubble-plates you see in many needle-wheel protein skimmers. And now they're starting to put in more moving parts complicating the maintenance even more.
They no longer tout how great a skimmer can be at lowering nitrates, rarely mention anything about contact time which is the very essence of making a protein skimmer more efficient at protein and dissolved organics and solids removal. They no longer can make tall protein skimmers because their needle-wheel pumps are very weak handling head pressure and moving water. But their products are excellent for being different every year, better at selling you replacement needle-wheels, better at selling you an expensive pump when it fails in a year or two, great for selling you carbon and nitrate removing chemicals and the media reactors to hold it, and great at putting more gimmicky things like gear mechanisms and paddle-wheel water flow inerrupters, great at increasing your maintenance time, and more fancy marketing terminology than ever.
Look at the cheapest needle-wheel protein skimmer design, now look at a more costly design. See any differences? A needle-wheel pump a bubble-plate, and a cone shape. Why would you think that a $2500.00 needle-wheel protein skimmer is going to be more efficient than the cheap one? Bubbles are bubbles no matter how costly the pump was that made them. The rest is poor design for efficient foam fractionation, solids removal, and nitrate reduction.
Notice how many hobbyists are using bio-pellet reactors or some other method of nitrate reduction? This was not the norm when all protein skimmers were venturi meaning that the needle-wheel protein skimmers are less efficient at nitrate reduction.
WHY NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS ARE POOR AT PROTEIN AND SOLIDS REMOVAL AND NITRATE REDUCTION:
1. BUBBLE PLATE They all have them, they MUST have them. They offer NOTHING to improve skimming and in fact reduce skimming efficiency. Nothing magic here, it is just a "muffler" to stop turbulence. Turbulence is good as it keeps the bubbles in the skimmer for a longer period of time. The bubble plate is also put right in the center of the skimmer, directly below the neck at the top so the bubbles rise more-or-less in a straight line to the top, absolutely the least efficient way to have good skimming. The bubbles need to stay in the skimmer for as long as possible so they can collect protein and solids as they move up the water column.
2. SHAPES: Cone, hourglass, wineglass, squashed cylinder, melted oval, whatever they call it is nothing magic and does not enhance the efficiency. They do this so that they can hold the large bubble plate (and sometimes the pump too) but then they have to transition to a neck at the top for the collection cup. And due to the sloped sides of the skimmer body any solid matter that sticks will cause a "traffic jam" of solids building up behind this sludge which is why these skimmers need frequent and complete disassembly to clean, put back together, adjust, break-in period, and maybe "skim" some wet stuff for a few days or a week, and then it's repeat the process again, and again, and again.
Cone shapes actually get the bubbles out of the skimmer FASTER thus the least efficiency as possible! Having some flat areas causes the bubbles to remain in the skimmer for longer time, better for skimming efficiency.
3. NECK DIAMETER is large, it has to be. Wetter foam is what you get and rarely can get dry foam. Think of the foam layer as a layered cake. Very thin and flat because the bubbles are held within this thin wet foam layer. So to get this into the cup you have to raise this thin layer so the very top is just squeaking over the edge of the cup riser and you get a wet skimmate with less solids. The wet foam layer allows any solids and proteins that are on the bubbles to fall back into the skimmer where the solids collect all over the inside and the proteins go back into your system. Now, lets take this layered cake foam and condense it into a narrow neck with a taller foam layer, kind of like a layered cake. Now the bubbles have more distance to rise, allows the top layer to become more "dry" which causes the solids to stick better as well as the proteins, you have a longer adjustment range with this taller foam column and more solids and protein removal.
4. BUBBLE DIAMETER, or Diameter, extremely important! Now, the needle-wheel folk have been creative in how they tell you how efficient a consistent and tiny bubble size is, false. Consider that wet layer of wet bubbles at the top kind of like a pie, a wet pie. All bubbles being of equal size and buoyancy so all just kind of lay around in a calm layer. More bubbles arrive underneath this layer and kind of push up the wet foam a tiny bit, very little interaction of bubbles in this thin layer. Now, consider in a true venturi skimmer that makes bubbles of various sizes and any bubble larger than another is more buoyant than that smaller bubble. So you get these different bubble diameters up top in the neck, which has a taller foam column, so these larger bubbles rise all the way to the top and pick up all the solids and proteins off the bubbles from the lower layer, and the bubbles also have a drying out effect or are less wet than the lower layers so yur solids stay stuck, and put into the cup.
5. PUMP. Needle-wheel pumps are so maintenance intense too clogging up with debris, wearing out the internal parts because of the unbalanced wheel, require frequent disassembly to clean, but they don't tell you this. Plus, the pump will be obsolete in a year, cost upwards of $200 to $600 to replace. Another problem with these pumps is that they produce a bubble diameter that is too consistent and too small, not good for efficient foam transportation into the cup. Bubbles of consistent size rise to the surface and have more of a "meet and greet" party and just mull around, and they are too wet. But bubbles of various diameter have the larger bubbles bust through the "meeters and greeters" and get them moving upwards through the column and transported into the cup. Also, these needle-wheel pumps are weak. They are good at making bubbles but poor at moving water at greater backpressures, as in they can't make a tall needle-wheel skimmer. When was the last time you saw a needle-wheel skimmer taller than 30"? Everyone used to make tall protein skimmers, I make them up to six feet tall! Taller skimmers are required for larger aquariums. You cannot make a short skimmer efficient for a large aquarium becuase the contact time is not there.
So, in review:
Bubble Plates reduce efficiency by removing turbulence, essential for better skimming.
Shapes, cones and tapered sides reduce efficiency by getting bubbles out of the skimmer faster, reduces efficient skimming.
Neck Diameter causes wetter foams, same consistency top to bottom.
Bubble Diameter, the entire reason needle-wheels are all designed the same.
Pump, must have a special pump and typically costly, and a true venturi skimmer can use ANY pump, cheap to expensive, your choice.
Every hobbyist that has replaced their needle-wheel protein skimmer with a venturi protein skimmer knows they have been sold an inefficient product, sees an increased skimmate production, a darker skimmate with more solids, lower maintenance, and won't have to keep dumping money and time into a gimmicky protein skimmer.
Link to a thread where I rebuilt a Venturi Skimmer.
www.reef2reef.com
Recirculating needle wheel are a slight step up due to increased dwell time in reaction chambers.
Something for you to read BEFORE you spends hundreds on a junk skimmer.
THE CURRENT TECHNOLOGY OF NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS (which is about 25 years old) IS LESS EFFICIENT THAN WHAT EVERYONE USED TO MAKE: VENTURI PROTEIN SKIMMERS, where the venturi is placed after the pump, not before the pump. And that change also led to the cone-shapes and bubble-plates you see in many needle-wheel protein skimmers. And now they're starting to put in more moving parts complicating the maintenance even more.
They no longer tout how great a skimmer can be at lowering nitrates, rarely mention anything about contact time which is the very essence of making a protein skimmer more efficient at protein and dissolved organics and solids removal. They no longer can make tall protein skimmers because their needle-wheel pumps are very weak handling head pressure and moving water. But their products are excellent for being different every year, better at selling you replacement needle-wheels, better at selling you an expensive pump when it fails in a year or two, great for selling you carbon and nitrate removing chemicals and the media reactors to hold it, and great at putting more gimmicky things like gear mechanisms and paddle-wheel water flow inerrupters, great at increasing your maintenance time, and more fancy marketing terminology than ever.
Look at the cheapest needle-wheel protein skimmer design, now look at a more costly design. See any differences? A needle-wheel pump a bubble-plate, and a cone shape. Why would you think that a $2500.00 needle-wheel protein skimmer is going to be more efficient than the cheap one? Bubbles are bubbles no matter how costly the pump was that made them. The rest is poor design for efficient foam fractionation, solids removal, and nitrate reduction.
Notice how many hobbyists are using bio-pellet reactors or some other method of nitrate reduction? This was not the norm when all protein skimmers were venturi meaning that the needle-wheel protein skimmers are less efficient at nitrate reduction.
WHY NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS ARE POOR AT PROTEIN AND SOLIDS REMOVAL AND NITRATE REDUCTION:
1. BUBBLE PLATE They all have them, they MUST have them. They offer NOTHING to improve skimming and in fact reduce skimming efficiency. Nothing magic here, it is just a "muffler" to stop turbulence. Turbulence is good as it keeps the bubbles in the skimmer for a longer period of time. The bubble plate is also put right in the center of the skimmer, directly below the neck at the top so the bubbles rise more-or-less in a straight line to the top, absolutely the least efficient way to have good skimming. The bubbles need to stay in the skimmer for as long as possible so they can collect protein and solids as they move up the water column.
2. SHAPES: Cone, hourglass, wineglass, squashed cylinder, melted oval, whatever they call it is nothing magic and does not enhance the efficiency. They do this so that they can hold the large bubble plate (and sometimes the pump too) but then they have to transition to a neck at the top for the collection cup. And due to the sloped sides of the skimmer body any solid matter that sticks will cause a "traffic jam" of solids building up behind this sludge which is why these skimmers need frequent and complete disassembly to clean, put back together, adjust, break-in period, and maybe "skim" some wet stuff for a few days or a week, and then it's repeat the process again, and again, and again.
Cone shapes actually get the bubbles out of the skimmer FASTER thus the least efficiency as possible! Having some flat areas causes the bubbles to remain in the skimmer for longer time, better for skimming efficiency.
3. NECK DIAMETER is large, it has to be. Wetter foam is what you get and rarely can get dry foam. Think of the foam layer as a layered cake. Very thin and flat because the bubbles are held within this thin wet foam layer. So to get this into the cup you have to raise this thin layer so the very top is just squeaking over the edge of the cup riser and you get a wet skimmate with less solids. The wet foam layer allows any solids and proteins that are on the bubbles to fall back into the skimmer where the solids collect all over the inside and the proteins go back into your system. Now, lets take this layered cake foam and condense it into a narrow neck with a taller foam layer, kind of like a layered cake. Now the bubbles have more distance to rise, allows the top layer to become more "dry" which causes the solids to stick better as well as the proteins, you have a longer adjustment range with this taller foam column and more solids and protein removal.
4. BUBBLE DIAMETER, or Diameter, extremely important! Now, the needle-wheel folk have been creative in how they tell you how efficient a consistent and tiny bubble size is, false. Consider that wet layer of wet bubbles at the top kind of like a pie, a wet pie. All bubbles being of equal size and buoyancy so all just kind of lay around in a calm layer. More bubbles arrive underneath this layer and kind of push up the wet foam a tiny bit, very little interaction of bubbles in this thin layer. Now, consider in a true venturi skimmer that makes bubbles of various sizes and any bubble larger than another is more buoyant than that smaller bubble. So you get these different bubble diameters up top in the neck, which has a taller foam column, so these larger bubbles rise all the way to the top and pick up all the solids and proteins off the bubbles from the lower layer, and the bubbles also have a drying out effect or are less wet than the lower layers so yur solids stay stuck, and put into the cup.
5. PUMP. Needle-wheel pumps are so maintenance intense too clogging up with debris, wearing out the internal parts because of the unbalanced wheel, require frequent disassembly to clean, but they don't tell you this. Plus, the pump will be obsolete in a year, cost upwards of $200 to $600 to replace. Another problem with these pumps is that they produce a bubble diameter that is too consistent and too small, not good for efficient foam transportation into the cup. Bubbles of consistent size rise to the surface and have more of a "meet and greet" party and just mull around, and they are too wet. But bubbles of various diameter have the larger bubbles bust through the "meeters and greeters" and get them moving upwards through the column and transported into the cup. Also, these needle-wheel pumps are weak. They are good at making bubbles but poor at moving water at greater backpressures, as in they can't make a tall needle-wheel skimmer. When was the last time you saw a needle-wheel skimmer taller than 30"? Everyone used to make tall protein skimmers, I make them up to six feet tall! Taller skimmers are required for larger aquariums. You cannot make a short skimmer efficient for a large aquarium becuase the contact time is not there.
So, in review:
Bubble Plates reduce efficiency by removing turbulence, essential for better skimming.
Shapes, cones and tapered sides reduce efficiency by getting bubbles out of the skimmer faster, reduces efficient skimming.
Neck Diameter causes wetter foams, same consistency top to bottom.
Bubble Diameter, the entire reason needle-wheels are all designed the same.
Pump, must have a special pump and typically costly, and a true venturi skimmer can use ANY pump, cheap to expensive, your choice.
Every hobbyist that has replaced their needle-wheel protein skimmer with a venturi protein skimmer knows they have been sold an inefficient product, sees an increased skimmate production, a darker skimmate with more solids, lower maintenance, and won't have to keep dumping money and time into a gimmicky protein skimmer.
Link to a thread where I rebuilt a Venturi Skimmer.
Skimmers??? Best of 202X and they are always junk!
Why is it I see tons of reviews for the Newest Gimmick needle-wheel skimmers and why is everyone buying these pieces of underrated and under preforming garbage? Anyone who has worked with a large system with a heavy bio load will have found, like me, that these HYPED needle wheel skimmers are...
www.reef2reef.com
Last edited:
I’m confused. What kind of skimmer is the Sicce Shark?Needle wheel skimmers are over priced and under rated. They use a pump impeller to fractionate the air which does not move water well.
Recirculating needle wheel are a slight step up due to increased dwell time in reaction chambers.
Something for you to read BEFORE you spends hundreds on a junk skimmer.
THE CURRENT TECHNOLOGY OF NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS (which is about 25 years old) IS LESS EFFICIENT THAN WHAT EVERYONE USED TO MAKE: VENTURI PROTEIN SKIMMERS, where the venturi is placed after the pump, not before the pump. And that change also led to the cone-shapes and bubble-plates you see in many needle-wheel protein skimmers. And now they're starting to put in more moving parts complicating the maintenance even more.
They no longer tout how great a skimmer can be at lowering nitrates, rarely mention anything about contact time which is the very essence of making a protein skimmer more efficient at protein and dissolved organics and solids removal. They no longer can make tall protein skimmers because their needle-wheel pumps are very weak handling head pressure and moving water. But their products are excellent for being different every year, better at selling you replacement needle-wheels, better at selling you an expensive pump when it fails in a year or two, great for selling you carbon and nitrate removing chemicals and the media reactors to hold it, and great at putting more gimmicky things like gear mechanisms and paddle-wheel water flow inerrupters, great at increasing your maintenance time, and more fancy marketing terminology than ever.
Look at the cheapest needle-wheel protein skimmer design, now look at a more costly design. See any differences? A needle-wheel pump a bubble-plate, and a cone shape. Why would you think that a $2500.00 needle-wheel protein skimmer is going to be more efficient than the cheap one? Bubbles are bubbles no matter how costly the pump was that made them. The rest is poor design for efficient foam fractionation, solids removal, and nitrate reduction.
Notice how many hobbyists are using bio-pellet reactors or some other method of nitrate reduction? This was not the norm when all protein skimmers were venturi meaning that the needle-wheel protein skimmers are less efficient at nitrate reduction.
WHY NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS ARE POOR AT PROTEIN AND SOLIDS REMOVAL AND NITRATE REDUCTION:
1. BUBBLE PLATE They all have them, they MUST have them. They offer NOTHING to improve skimming and in fact reduce skimming efficiency. Nothing magic here, it is just a "muffler" to stop turbulence. Turbulence is good as it keeps the bubbles in the skimmer for a longer period of time. The bubble plate is also put right in the center of the skimmer, directly below the neck at the top so the bubbles rise more-or-less in a straight line to the top, absolutely the least efficient way to have good skimming. The bubbles need to stay in the skimmer for as long as possible so they can collect protein and solids as they move up the water column.
2. SHAPES: Cone, hourglass, wineglass, squashed cylinder, melted oval, whatever they call it is nothing magic and does not enhance the efficiency. They do this so that they can hold the large bubble plate (and sometimes the pump too) but then they have to transition to a neck at the top for the collection cup. And due to the sloped sides of the skimmer body any solid matter that sticks will cause a "traffic jam" of solids building up behind this sludge which is why these skimmers need frequent and complete disassembly to clean, put back together, adjust, break-in period, and maybe "skim" some wet stuff for a few days or a week, and then it's repeat the process again, and again, and again.
Cone shapes actually get the bubbles out of the skimmer FASTER thus the least efficiency as possible! Having some flat areas causes the bubbles to remain in the skimmer for longer time, better for skimming efficiency.
3. NECK DIAMETER is large, it has to be. Wetter foam is what you get and rarely can get dry foam. Think of the foam layer as a layered cake. Very thin and flat because the bubbles are held within this thin wet foam layer. So to get this into the cup you have to raise this thin layer so the very top is just squeaking over the edge of the cup riser and you get a wet skimmate with less solids. The wet foam layer allows any solids and proteins that are on the bubbles to fall back into the skimmer where the solids collect all over the inside and the proteins go back into your system. Now, lets take this layered cake foam and condense it into a narrow neck with a taller foam layer, kind of like a layered cake. Now the bubbles have more distance to rise, allows the top layer to become more "dry" which causes the solids to stick better as well as the proteins, you have a longer adjustment range with this taller foam column and more solids and protein removal.
4. BUBBLE DIAMETER, or Diameter, extremely important! Now, the needle-wheel folk have been creative in how they tell you how efficient a consistent and tiny bubble size is, false. Consider that wet layer of wet bubbles at the top kind of like a pie, a wet pie. All bubbles being of equal size and buoyancy so all just kind of lay around in a calm layer. More bubbles arrive underneath this layer and kind of push up the wet foam a tiny bit, very little interaction of bubbles in this thin layer. Now, consider in a true venturi skimmer that makes bubbles of various sizes and any bubble larger than another is more buoyant than that smaller bubble. So you get these different bubble diameters up top in the neck, which has a taller foam column, so these larger bubbles rise all the way to the top and pick up all the solids and proteins off the bubbles from the lower layer, and the bubbles also have a drying out effect or are less wet than the lower layers so yur solids stay stuck, and put into the cup.
5. PUMP. Needle-wheel pumps are so maintenance intense too clogging up with debris, wearing out the internal parts because of the unbalanced wheel, require frequent disassembly to clean, but they don't tell you this. Plus, the pump will be obsolete in a year, cost upwards of $200 to $600 to replace. Another problem with these pumps is that they produce a bubble diameter that is too consistent and too small, not good for efficient foam transportation into the cup. Bubbles of consistent size rise to the surface and have more of a "meet and greet" party and just mull around, and they are too wet. But bubbles of various diameter have the larger bubbles bust through the "meeters and greeters" and get them moving upwards through the column and transported into the cup. Also, these needle-wheel pumps are weak. They are good at making bubbles but poor at moving water at greater backpressures, as in they can't make a tall needle-wheel skimmer. When was the last time you saw a needle-wheel skimmer taller than 30"? Everyone used to make tall protein skimmers, I make them up to six feet tall! Taller skimmers are required for larger aquariums. You cannot make a short skimmer efficient for a large aquarium becuase the contact time is not there.
So, in review:
Bubble Plates reduce efficiency by removing turbulence, essential for better skimming.
Shapes, cones and tapered sides reduce efficiency by getting bubbles out of the skimmer faster, reduces efficient skimming.
Neck Diameter causes wetter foams, same consistency top to bottom.
Bubble Diameter, the entire reason needle-wheels are all designed the same.
Pump, must have a special pump and typically costly, and a true venturi skimmer can use ANY pump, cheap to expensive, your choice.
Every hobbyist that has replaced their needle-wheel protein skimmer with a venturi protein skimmer knows they have been sold an inefficient product, sees an increased skimmate production, a darker skimmate with more solids, lower maintenance, and won't have to keep dumping money and time into a gimmicky protein skimmer.
Link to a thread where I rebuilt a Venturi Skimmer.
Skimmers??? Best of 202X and they are always junk!
Why is it I see tons of reviews for the Newest Gimmick needle-wheel skimmers and why is everyone buying these pieces of underrated and under preforming garbage? Anyone who has worked with a large system with a heavy bio load will have found, like me, that these HYPED needle wheel skimmers are...
sangria517
Community Member
Thanks!Came across this in my search for a 300 online. No idea who the seller is but looks like he has a lot of positive feedback .. check it out and look into it. Link below
Sicce Shark Skimmer 150 - Compact Ultra Quiet Internal Skimmer NOVELTY! | eBay
Shark SKIMMER 150 and Shark SKIMMER 300 are modern internal skimmers with a very compact and innovative shark design, for direct placement in a marine biotope. They are based on the latest developments and knowledge in the field of reef aquaristics and are designed for aquariums up to 150 and up...www.ebay.com
Looks like he is in Germany. I think here in the US they are going to for like 40 bucks but I could be wrong.
reefrookie379
Community Member
This was a very informative reply and Included link, I appreciate it. I am looking to do a 50 gallon build and it seems all skimmers for nano tanks are pin wheel and nothing offered Venturi. I am also going to have 50 lbs of live sand and 100 lbs of live rock along with a hang on refugium. My skimmer isn’t planned to be my main source of nutrient exportation and will be more of a very small support system to my rock, sand, and water changes. I plan to wait months if not longer to add the skimmer to my build once I start to include a few corals, and not planning on keeping many corals. Also not sure if you concur that contact skimming is plankton friendly and that a pinwheel contact skimmer would be helpful in the sense of using it simply as a support with constantly dosing plankton in my tank to feed pod population, for mandarin, and eventually corals.Needle wheel skimmers are over priced and under rated. They use a pump impeller to fractionate the air which does not move water well.
Recirculating needle wheel are a slight step up due to increased dwell time in reaction chambers.
Something for you to read BEFORE you spends hundreds on a junk skimmer.
THE CURRENT TECHNOLOGY OF NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS (which is about 25 years old) IS LESS EFFICIENT THAN WHAT EVERYONE USED TO MAKE: VENTURI PROTEIN SKIMMERS, where the venturi is placed after the pump, not before the pump. And that change also led to the cone-shapes and bubble-plates you see in many needle-wheel protein skimmers. And now they're starting to put in more moving parts complicating the maintenance even more.
They no longer tout how great a skimmer can be at lowering nitrates, rarely mention anything about contact time which is the very essence of making a protein skimmer more efficient at protein and dissolved organics and solids removal. They no longer can make tall protein skimmers because their needle-wheel pumps are very weak handling head pressure and moving water. But their products are excellent for being different every year, better at selling you replacement needle-wheels, better at selling you an expensive pump when it fails in a year or two, great for selling you carbon and nitrate removing chemicals and the media reactors to hold it, and great at putting more gimmicky things like gear mechanisms and paddle-wheel water flow inerrupters, great at increasing your maintenance time, and more fancy marketing terminology than ever.
Look at the cheapest needle-wheel protein skimmer design, now look at a more costly design. See any differences? A needle-wheel pump a bubble-plate, and a cone shape. Why would you think that a $2500.00 needle-wheel protein skimmer is going to be more efficient than the cheap one? Bubbles are bubbles no matter how costly the pump was that made them. The rest is poor design for efficient foam fractionation, solids removal, and nitrate reduction.
Notice how many hobbyists are using bio-pellet reactors or some other method of nitrate reduction? This was not the norm when all protein skimmers were venturi meaning that the needle-wheel protein skimmers are less efficient at nitrate reduction.
WHY NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS ARE POOR AT PROTEIN AND SOLIDS REMOVAL AND NITRATE REDUCTION:
1. BUBBLE PLATE They all have them, they MUST have them. They offer NOTHING to improve skimming and in fact reduce skimming efficiency. Nothing magic here, it is just a "muffler" to stop turbulence. Turbulence is good as it keeps the bubbles in the skimmer for a longer period of time. The bubble plate is also put right in the center of the skimmer, directly below the neck at the top so the bubbles rise more-or-less in a straight line to the top, absolutely the least efficient way to have good skimming. The bubbles need to stay in the skimmer for as long as possible so they can collect protein and solids as they move up the water column.
2. SHAPES: Cone, hourglass, wineglass, squashed cylinder, melted oval, whatever they call it is nothing magic and does not enhance the efficiency. They do this so that they can hold the large bubble plate (and sometimes the pump too) but then they have to transition to a neck at the top for the collection cup. And due to the sloped sides of the skimmer body any solid matter that sticks will cause a "traffic jam" of solids building up behind this sludge which is why these skimmers need frequent and complete disassembly to clean, put back together, adjust, break-in period, and maybe "skim" some wet stuff for a few days or a week, and then it's repeat the process again, and again, and again.
Cone shapes actually get the bubbles out of the skimmer FASTER thus the least efficiency as possible! Having some flat areas causes the bubbles to remain in the skimmer for longer time, better for skimming efficiency.
3. NECK DIAMETER is large, it has to be. Wetter foam is what you get and rarely can get dry foam. Think of the foam layer as a layered cake. Very thin and flat because the bubbles are held within this thin wet foam layer. So to get this into the cup you have to raise this thin layer so the very top is just squeaking over the edge of the cup riser and you get a wet skimmate with less solids. The wet foam layer allows any solids and proteins that are on the bubbles to fall back into the skimmer where the solids collect all over the inside and the proteins go back into your system. Now, lets take this layered cake foam and condense it into a narrow neck with a taller foam layer, kind of like a layered cake. Now the bubbles have more distance to rise, allows the top layer to become more "dry" which causes the solids to stick better as well as the proteins, you have a longer adjustment range with this taller foam column and more solids and protein removal.
4. BUBBLE DIAMETER, or Diameter, extremely important! Now, the needle-wheel folk have been creative in how they tell you how efficient a consistent and tiny bubble size is, false. Consider that wet layer of wet bubbles at the top kind of like a pie, a wet pie. All bubbles being of equal size and buoyancy so all just kind of lay around in a calm layer. More bubbles arrive underneath this layer and kind of push up the wet foam a tiny bit, very little interaction of bubbles in this thin layer. Now, consider in a true venturi skimmer that makes bubbles of various sizes and any bubble larger than another is more buoyant than that smaller bubble. So you get these different bubble diameters up top in the neck, which has a taller foam column, so these larger bubbles rise all the way to the top and pick up all the solids and proteins off the bubbles from the lower layer, and the bubbles also have a drying out effect or are less wet than the lower layers so yur solids stay stuck, and put into the cup.
5. PUMP. Needle-wheel pumps are so maintenance intense too clogging up with debris, wearing out the internal parts because of the unbalanced wheel, require frequent disassembly to clean, but they don't tell you this. Plus, the pump will be obsolete in a year, cost upwards of $200 to $600 to replace. Another problem with these pumps is that they produce a bubble diameter that is too consistent and too small, not good for efficient foam transportation into the cup. Bubbles of consistent size rise to the surface and have more of a "meet and greet" party and just mull around, and they are too wet. But bubbles of various diameter have the larger bubbles bust through the "meeters and greeters" and get them moving upwards through the column and transported into the cup. Also, these needle-wheel pumps are weak. They are good at making bubbles but poor at moving water at greater backpressures, as in they can't make a tall needle-wheel skimmer. When was the last time you saw a needle-wheel skimmer taller than 30"? Everyone used to make tall protein skimmers, I make them up to six feet tall! Taller skimmers are required for larger aquariums. You cannot make a short skimmer efficient for a large aquarium becuase the contact time is not there.
So, in review:
Bubble Plates reduce efficiency by removing turbulence, essential for better skimming.
Shapes, cones and tapered sides reduce efficiency by getting bubbles out of the skimmer faster, reduces efficient skimming.
Neck Diameter causes wetter foams, same consistency top to bottom.
Bubble Diameter, the entire reason needle-wheels are all designed the same.
Pump, must have a special pump and typically costly, and a true venturi skimmer can use ANY pump, cheap to expensive, your choice.
Every hobbyist that has replaced their needle-wheel protein skimmer with a venturi protein skimmer knows they have been sold an inefficient product, sees an increased skimmate production, a darker skimmate with more solids, lower maintenance, and won't have to keep dumping money and time into a gimmicky protein skimmer.
Link to a thread where I rebuilt a Venturi Skimmer.
Skimmers??? Best of 202X and they are always junk!
Why is it I see tons of reviews for the Newest Gimmick needle-wheel skimmers and why is everyone buying these pieces of underrated and under preforming garbage? Anyone who has worked with a large system with a heavy bio load will have found, like me, that these HYPED needle wheel skimmers are...
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EchoPear
Community Member
This is interesting as someone who knows very little about skimmer design. I did see that the Sicce 150 uses a needle wheel contact skim and the Sicce 300 uses counter current skimming with a needle wheel. Is one of these better than the other? I was drawn to the 300 only due to the fact that I have a glass box tank with no surface skimming but the shark 300 could do that plus a little protein skimming too.Needle wheel skimmers are over priced and under rated. They use a pump impeller to fractionate the air which does not move water well.
Recirculating needle wheel are a slight step up due to increased dwell time in reaction chambers.
Something for you to read BEFORE you spends hundreds on a junk skimmer.
THE CURRENT TECHNOLOGY OF NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS (which is about 25 years old) IS LESS EFFICIENT THAN WHAT EVERYONE USED TO MAKE: VENTURI PROTEIN SKIMMERS, where the venturi is placed after the pump, not before the pump. And that change also led to the cone-shapes and bubble-plates you see in many needle-wheel protein skimmers. And now they're starting to put in more moving parts complicating the maintenance even more.
They no longer tout how great a skimmer can be at lowering nitrates, rarely mention anything about contact time which is the very essence of making a protein skimmer more efficient at protein and dissolved organics and solids removal. They no longer can make tall protein skimmers because their needle-wheel pumps are very weak handling head pressure and moving water. But their products are excellent for being different every year, better at selling you replacement needle-wheels, better at selling you an expensive pump when it fails in a year or two, great for selling you carbon and nitrate removing chemicals and the media reactors to hold it, and great at putting more gimmicky things like gear mechanisms and paddle-wheel water flow inerrupters, great at increasing your maintenance time, and more fancy marketing terminology than ever.
Look at the cheapest needle-wheel protein skimmer design, now look at a more costly design. See any differences? A needle-wheel pump a bubble-plate, and a cone shape. Why would you think that a $2500.00 needle-wheel protein skimmer is going to be more efficient than the cheap one? Bubbles are bubbles no matter how costly the pump was that made them. The rest is poor design for efficient foam fractionation, solids removal, and nitrate reduction.
Notice how many hobbyists are using bio-pellet reactors or some other method of nitrate reduction? This was not the norm when all protein skimmers were venturi meaning that the needle-wheel protein skimmers are less efficient at nitrate reduction.
WHY NEEDLE-WHEEL PROTEIN SKIMMERS ARE POOR AT PROTEIN AND SOLIDS REMOVAL AND NITRATE REDUCTION:
1. BUBBLE PLATE They all have them, they MUST have them. They offer NOTHING to improve skimming and in fact reduce skimming efficiency. Nothing magic here, it is just a "muffler" to stop turbulence. Turbulence is good as it keeps the bubbles in the skimmer for a longer period of time. The bubble plate is also put right in the center of the skimmer, directly below the neck at the top so the bubbles rise more-or-less in a straight line to the top, absolutely the least efficient way to have good skimming. The bubbles need to stay in the skimmer for as long as possible so they can collect protein and solids as they move up the water column.
2. SHAPES: Cone, hourglass, wineglass, squashed cylinder, melted oval, whatever they call it is nothing magic and does not enhance the efficiency. They do this so that they can hold the large bubble plate (and sometimes the pump too) but then they have to transition to a neck at the top for the collection cup. And due to the sloped sides of the skimmer body any solid matter that sticks will cause a "traffic jam" of solids building up behind this sludge which is why these skimmers need frequent and complete disassembly to clean, put back together, adjust, break-in period, and maybe "skim" some wet stuff for a few days or a week, and then it's repeat the process again, and again, and again.
Cone shapes actually get the bubbles out of the skimmer FASTER thus the least efficiency as possible! Having some flat areas causes the bubbles to remain in the skimmer for longer time, better for skimming efficiency.
3. NECK DIAMETER is large, it has to be. Wetter foam is what you get and rarely can get dry foam. Think of the foam layer as a layered cake. Very thin and flat because the bubbles are held within this thin wet foam layer. So to get this into the cup you have to raise this thin layer so the very top is just squeaking over the edge of the cup riser and you get a wet skimmate with less solids. The wet foam layer allows any solids and proteins that are on the bubbles to fall back into the skimmer where the solids collect all over the inside and the proteins go back into your system. Now, lets take this layered cake foam and condense it into a narrow neck with a taller foam layer, kind of like a layered cake. Now the bubbles have more distance to rise, allows the top layer to become more "dry" which causes the solids to stick better as well as the proteins, you have a longer adjustment range with this taller foam column and more solids and protein removal.
4. BUBBLE DIAMETER, or Diameter, extremely important! Now, the needle-wheel folk have been creative in how they tell you how efficient a consistent and tiny bubble size is, false. Consider that wet layer of wet bubbles at the top kind of like a pie, a wet pie. All bubbles being of equal size and buoyancy so all just kind of lay around in a calm layer. More bubbles arrive underneath this layer and kind of push up the wet foam a tiny bit, very little interaction of bubbles in this thin layer. Now, consider in a true venturi skimmer that makes bubbles of various sizes and any bubble larger than another is more buoyant than that smaller bubble. So you get these different bubble diameters up top in the neck, which has a taller foam column, so these larger bubbles rise all the way to the top and pick up all the solids and proteins off the bubbles from the lower layer, and the bubbles also have a drying out effect or are less wet than the lower layers so yur solids stay stuck, and put into the cup.
5. PUMP. Needle-wheel pumps are so maintenance intense too clogging up with debris, wearing out the internal parts because of the unbalanced wheel, require frequent disassembly to clean, but they don't tell you this. Plus, the pump will be obsolete in a year, cost upwards of $200 to $600 to replace. Another problem with these pumps is that they produce a bubble diameter that is too consistent and too small, not good for efficient foam transportation into the cup. Bubbles of consistent size rise to the surface and have more of a "meet and greet" party and just mull around, and they are too wet. But bubbles of various diameter have the larger bubbles bust through the "meeters and greeters" and get them moving upwards through the column and transported into the cup. Also, these needle-wheel pumps are weak. They are good at making bubbles but poor at moving water at greater backpressures, as in they can't make a tall needle-wheel skimmer. When was the last time you saw a needle-wheel skimmer taller than 30"? Everyone used to make tall protein skimmers, I make them up to six feet tall! Taller skimmers are required for larger aquariums. You cannot make a short skimmer efficient for a large aquarium becuase the contact time is not there.
So, in review:
Bubble Plates reduce efficiency by removing turbulence, essential for better skimming.
Shapes, cones and tapered sides reduce efficiency by getting bubbles out of the skimmer faster, reduces efficient skimming.
Neck Diameter causes wetter foams, same consistency top to bottom.
Bubble Diameter, the entire reason needle-wheels are all designed the same.
Pump, must have a special pump and typically costly, and a true venturi skimmer can use ANY pump, cheap to expensive, your choice.
Every hobbyist that has replaced their needle-wheel protein skimmer with a venturi protein skimmer knows they have been sold an inefficient product, sees an increased skimmate production, a darker skimmate with more solids, lower maintenance, and won't have to keep dumping money and time into a gimmicky protein skimmer.
Link to a thread where I rebuilt a Venturi Skimmer.
Skimmers??? Best of 202X and they are always junk!
Why is it I see tons of reviews for the Newest Gimmick needle-wheel skimmers and why is everyone buying these pieces of underrated and under preforming garbage? Anyone who has worked with a large system with a heavy bio load will have found, like me, that these HYPED needle wheel skimmers are...
You should know that Sicce offers these with a 5 year warranty and the whole ensemble is under $150, although I am sure you had written that for larger more expensive skimmers. So the issue with parts breaking or being expensive seems like a non-issue here
Needle wheel, any of them, do not move enough water, or provide enough contact time for the foam to properly strip nutrients.
You need Injector Style IN MY OPINION if your trying to build anything larger than a 220g display.
These are the exact injectors I use on my MTC DIY skimmer I rebuilt, these are the Ozone Safe injectors so you can Inject Ozone thru it, which I do. I have a 100MG/H Spa Ozone machine.
Short Vid of my Skimmer in motion.
TD1260
New Member
Just thought I would post in case his help someone else out. I bought one of these recently just to see if it was worth anything in comparison to my tunze skimmer that was about double the price. To be frankly honest, I absolutely hate the shark skimmer. The only thing I like so far frankly is the magnet. The rest of the design does not seem very user-friendly and not put together in the first place. I would personally not recommend this product to anyone that I know.
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