Current USA "Fission" Protein Skimmer

EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
well i owned that skimmer once but is in the trash now is really a small nano skimmer perfect for a nano but in my experience and well everyone gets different opinion but mine was that the parts are to simple and they tend to brake cause of cheap plastic so i kept fixing parts and if your using it dont used it all the time put a timer cause will purify your water tooo much will take all nutrients and good things out and lower your ph and everything so if you are not dosing anythink be aware of that cuase in that time i didnt dose anything to my tank and my water was super clean and the ph drop lower than 78 cause i run the skimmer 24/7 and i didnt know that was gonna take all nutrients out so everything in my tank except for corals die cause of the shock of ph lowering so low so be carfull using it but is really a good skimmer and i recommend it cause i know kill my fish but was my foltcause i didnt know how to used it properly and the guy that always helps me told me that he never runs hes skimmer all the time cause of the nutrients reason so he told me that he had his in timer but it did help me with nitrates they were like around 25 and after a week they were 0 so works but put a timer on it and also rinse it before you put it on the tank to remove oil from it and to get to work faster.....ok i think im done with my book .... i hope this info helps you lets see what the guys say (if they had some experience with it) ohhhh forgot just in case get a ground for your tank to prevent shocks to your fish and invert.... they run for $10 ok...

eddy :cool1:
 
EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
aromano said:
Ed,

Skimmers are not responsible for lowering your PH or removing all the nutrients in the water to the point to kill your corals. Something else was responsible for the death of your livestock, but definitely not the removal of nutrients. I run a fairly powerful AquaC EV120 protein skimmer in my 75 gallon, which is on 24/7 and sometimes there is nothing to skim, as this skimmer can really produce a dark cup of skimate several times a week. I have experienced no PH fluctuations or negative effects with my corals, fish and inverts with any of my skimmers including the Current USA "Fission"skimmerâ€
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skipm

skipm

Moderator
Staff member
The skimmer help increase the amount of oxygen in your water and that may have contributed to the pH drop. I would say the biggest factor was the overcrowding issue.
The biggest negative I have heard about these skimmers is that they sometime release alot of micro bubbles back into the tank if they aren't put where baffles will take care of the bubbles. I have one that I am going to try out in a hang on filter, I have a Sanders Picolo skimmer rigged in a hang on already and it worked pretty good once I got the right air pump to power it.
 
EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
sounds excellent skimp and yeah i was having alot of mini bubbles for a while and then not that much....and over crowding is really true im with you.... but the weird thing is that overcrowding issue will kill little by little or one fish at the time not all at once and nitrate and amonia will go really up and amonia was at .05 and nitrate 0.... ..... i wish i had the balls to try another skimmer but im doing pretty well with only water changes....

edd :cool1:
 
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nichols_scott

New Member
I bought it at the LFS for $50. After the purchase I found it online for $24. Dooh! I'm using it with an nano 24. It fits nicely in the filter compartment. However, its kind of delicate (the attachment brace cracked). The resevoir that catches the protein is not very big. Currently it fills up in about 3 hours. I'm hoping as I use it more it will take longer to fill. I have a feeling it may have been designed more for 12g size tanks, but it seems to work well. It also puts a lot of air back in the tank, which is good and bad (can you say salt creep?)

Can it remove all the nutrients? Maybe I should only run it once a week, and what do you think? I don't see how it could lower the PH. Are you sure something else isn't happening in the tank?

Also, if you have already purchased the intake skimmer ($9 add on for nano cube) you can't use this with it because the water level is too low in the filter compartment. What do you think is better the $9 iintake skimmer from JBJ (creates a small water fall near surface) or the Fission (cyclone of air bubbles that pulls protein to surface)?
 
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nichols_scott

New Member
Thanks. However, an academic link not related to caring for fish and coral doesn't really help much, but it is interesting and a good read. I'm more interested in what people have experienced or what they know of this question:

What do you think is better the $9 iintake skimmer from JBJ (creates a small waterfall near intake) or the Fission (cyclone of air bubbles that pulls protein to surface)? I wasn't able to install both because the water level was too low in the sump when the JBJ intake skimmer was installed. The Fission cyclone skimmer releases a lot of bubbles into the tank, which i think is a good thing (except can you say salt creep?).
 
EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
nichols_scott said:
. It also puts a lot of air back in the tank, which is good and bad (can you say salt creep?)
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Well they say that the bubbles can cause some stress to the livestock but you can prevent this by putting a sponge in the other chamber to prevent the bubbles get to the pump so when water returns will be less bubbles and about the sponge is even in the instruccion. (add a sponge to prevent bubbles in main tank)


nichols_scott said:
.

Can it remove all the nutrients? Maybe I should only run it once a week, and what do you think? I don't see how it could lower the PH. Are you sure something else isn't happening in the tank?
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And well is really easy to blame something else than your self so im still not sure if my ph drop cause skimmer or not .... but im still have some problems with that and well other thing not helping is that KH is really high and no matter what i do still high so is a constant fight with the ph dropping, so im testing almost every 2-3 days so before a super swing i can do something so my fish dont get stress....
 
skipm

skipm

Moderator
Staff member
If I had to choose between the surface skimmer and a protein skimmer in a Nanocube there is no contest, the protein skimmer is history. I would rather have the surface skimmer removing the film that tends to build up on the waters surface that decreases the amount of light penetrating the water and partially inhibits gas exchange at the surface of the tank. I can deal with nutrient build up through water changes.
 
EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
Same here surface skimmer for sure....let the weekly water change do the protein skimmer job...IMO :) ;-)
 
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nichols_scott

New Member
Thanks for the feedback. The surface skimmer is about 1/3 to 1/5 of the cost, depending on how much you pay for the fission, which is a good thing. The fission sells for about $25 online and $50 at the LFS and the surface skimmer sales for about $9 online. I haven't seen it sold at the LFS yet but they'll probably want $15 to $20 for it.

I've been running the fission protein skimmer for about a day and I must admit my corals already look healthier then they did before. Changing 25% of the water once a week will create the same effect though like you said.

The fission does put a lot aire in the tank. I currently have it in the last filter compartment next to the outlet. I will move it to the middle compartment. This is where my carbon currently is. Then I will find out if the bubbles are less. There's a sponge filter underneath the carbon so it should be.
 
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Coralreefdiver

New Member
iI bought one, and placed it in the 2nd filtration compartment of my Nanocibe 24DX. It was very difficult to get in there, very delicate, and very hard to fine tune. You either have too much bubbles or not enough. I just kept getting a full TINY cup in about 3-4 hours, and it seemed as though it was not anything but water or condensation from the bubbles.

I removed it a few days ago....I would not recommend it to anyone.......but thats just my opinion.
 
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reefman23

New Member
After seeing one in person at a LFS for the first time last weekend, i wouldnt think that they would work very well...They are so teeny that there would be very little contact time with the air bubbles. it can only be somewhat effective with that along with it's short stature.

If you COULD get it to produce a decent skimmate, it would be better than nothing though.

Jesse
 
skipm

skipm

Moderator
Staff member
I think that they are better than nothing but you can keep good water parameters by using good husbandry on your tank doing partial water changes, cleaning mechanical filtration media, etc. on a timely schedule. If you are pushing the capability of your system to the edge you may need a skimmer and this could be your only option. Fine tuning these things seem to be the biggest headache, especially if they are in a sump area where the water level is affected by evaporation. These skimmers do have a place in the hobby but that place is mainly as a bandaid for bad maintenance habits or overstocking.
 
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