Here is a review I wrote up after running the skimmer for a week:
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This may be a tad premature as the skimmer has only been running for a week now but I will give a little review of what I think of it. My intentions from the beginning in regards to evaluating this skimmer and posting about it was to keep everything factual. I know so many people out there will post that a certain skimmer is so good just because they own one, they have spent the money on it, their friend owns one, a friend of a friend of a neighbor of a delivery man said something good about one, they read other posts about one but have never seen or used one, etc. I just wanted to give an honest factual review about this skimmer.
One thing I was concerned about when deciding whether or not to get the BK was that everybody that owned one had such amazing things to say about it. This is a very expensive skimmer so it was hard to tell if all of those people were just talking it up because they needed to justify the money they spent on it or if it truly was as amazing as they said.
Now that I have used this skimmer I can honestly say it is every bit as amazing as other people say it is. Is there something "magical" about it? I don't know but I have never seen anything perform like this and never really imagined a skimmer could perform like this on my tank.
BUBBLES:
The bubbles are literally smaller than I ever imagined could be produced by a NW. If they were any smaller they would be microbubbles and would not rise to the top of the skimmer.
RD:
The pump is very powerful and dead silent. It is hard to believe that such a powerful pump can be so silent. The silencer on the air intake is also dead silent. Even when I ran a 2 foot long carbon and floss filter on my MR-6 beckett injectors, the incoming air could still be heard, but not with the BK.
WORKMANSHIP:
The workmanship on this skimmer is truly second to none. Everything on the skimmer is completely flawless. All connections are beefed up with PVC welds where needed to add that extra strength.
THE GOOD:
The bubble size and density is amazing. With the nozzle removed from the RD, the chamber is white with bubbles. All of the bubbles are very fine. So far the skimmer has been super consistent. It seems to be pretty much set it and forget it. I haven't had any overflows or skimmate going from dry to wet at different times of the day, although I have heard reports from other BK owners that theirs has overflowed from time to time. The production from day to day seems to stay the same, regardless of how much skimmate has formed on the riser tube. I think this may have something to do with the massive amount of air that is pushing that skimmate up the riser tube. The skimmate quality is also awesome. I have had this skimmer produce dry chunky skimmate and right now it is producing a fairly moist skimmate that is very dirty but is producing a lot of it. I have never had another skimmer that you can fine tune the skimmate so much. With most of the other skimmers I've used you can set it for either wet or dry and not usually much in between. The BK can be set for any "wetness" of skimmate imaginable.
COMPLAINTS:
The complaints I have are small and probably not even worth mentioning. But since I want to keep this an honest review, I am including them. First and foremost, the biggest problem with this skimmer is that the bubble plate cannot be removed to clean the are underneath it. And this are DOES collect detritus. Another complaint is that the drain tube for the collection cup is very short. You pretty much have to take your cup that you drain the skimmat into and hold it right next to the cup while you drain the skimmate, which is kind of tedious. If the tube was longer, you could just set your cup next to the sump and stick the tube into and not have to hold the cup in an uncomfortable positon while filling it. It also gets more and more "uncomfortable" as you cup gets fuller and heavier. I feel that there should be a ball valve on the drain tube instead of a plug. On the outlet of the ball valve you should be able to add an extension to the tubing for draining. This way, when you need to unscrew the collection cup for cleaning, you just take that extension off and the tubing won't get in the way.
My last complaint is about the pump performance and this only pertains to the internal models. I was told that you get the same air input into the skimmer regardless of how you have the nozzle tuned on the pump. This was a major selling point on the internal vs. external for me because I figured you could control how much water was going through the skimmer (somewhat similar to a recirculating skimmer) while still pushing the same amount of air through it. But it seems that the full potential of air intake is not acheieved unless the nozzle is completely removed from the pump. However, I do not have an air flow meter to verify that there is any difference in air intake. It could be that the increase in water intake is creating more turbulence in the skimmer, which makes it appear that more air is taken in as the bubbles are being pushed all over the place. I would really like to get an air flow meter to check this. But right now, it seems that you can only maximize the skimmer's performance by removing the nozzle, which also pumps more water through the skimmer and decreases dwell time. However, for my application I do like the nozzle removed so I can push more water through the skimmer anyways. This allows me to process more water at a time and remove more solids from the system rather than having them settle out in the sump. But the trade-off could be that the reduced contact time is not allowing the more stubborn proteins that need a 120 second contact time to be removed.
I think that is pretty much it. I truly am amazed at the performance of this skimmer. Is it worth the price? That is hard to say. I guess that really boils down to a person's personal opinion.
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And here are some new comments:
The BK continues to be a solid skimmer. Easy to adjust to any type of skimmate I want. Although I can no longer get it to skim dry but I think it is because there are no longer enough nutrients in the water. I have been running it very wet for quite some time. Wet to the point where I do not get foam, just water droplets that collect, yet the skimmate is still a fairly dark color, not the light tea that you usually see from wet skimming. I am skimming about 1 gallon per day.
I have found that the skimmer does still skim best with the nozzle either removed or uscrewed almost all the way. Heinz was over at Klaus's and said they hooked up an air pump and watt meter and found that when the nozzle is removed, the RD sucks up twice as much electricity and half as much air. So it is only an illusion in the skimmer body that there is more air going into the skimmer with the nozzle removed. I now run my nozzle unscrewed almost all the way.
Cleaning the bottom of the skimmer is a nuisance but not impossible. Once per month I use a turkey baster with soft tubing attached to blow out the detritus from the bottom while the skimmer is running.
I have encountered another minor issue. That is the silencer. After a couple months, the silencer got filled with debris from the air and began to restrict the air intake. The silencer is glued together so you cannot take it apart to clean it or swap out the filter floss. I ran some RO water through it and it was working like new instantly without even letting it dry. But I wonder just how many times can dirt build up and then RO water run through it before it needs to be replaced.
**************************************************
This may be a tad premature as the skimmer has only been running for a week now but I will give a little review of what I think of it. My intentions from the beginning in regards to evaluating this skimmer and posting about it was to keep everything factual. I know so many people out there will post that a certain skimmer is so good just because they own one, they have spent the money on it, their friend owns one, a friend of a friend of a neighbor of a delivery man said something good about one, they read other posts about one but have never seen or used one, etc. I just wanted to give an honest factual review about this skimmer.
One thing I was concerned about when deciding whether or not to get the BK was that everybody that owned one had such amazing things to say about it. This is a very expensive skimmer so it was hard to tell if all of those people were just talking it up because they needed to justify the money they spent on it or if it truly was as amazing as they said.
Now that I have used this skimmer I can honestly say it is every bit as amazing as other people say it is. Is there something "magical" about it? I don't know but I have never seen anything perform like this and never really imagined a skimmer could perform like this on my tank.
BUBBLES:
The bubbles are literally smaller than I ever imagined could be produced by a NW. If they were any smaller they would be microbubbles and would not rise to the top of the skimmer.
RD:
The pump is very powerful and dead silent. It is hard to believe that such a powerful pump can be so silent. The silencer on the air intake is also dead silent. Even when I ran a 2 foot long carbon and floss filter on my MR-6 beckett injectors, the incoming air could still be heard, but not with the BK.
WORKMANSHIP:
The workmanship on this skimmer is truly second to none. Everything on the skimmer is completely flawless. All connections are beefed up with PVC welds where needed to add that extra strength.
THE GOOD:
The bubble size and density is amazing. With the nozzle removed from the RD, the chamber is white with bubbles. All of the bubbles are very fine. So far the skimmer has been super consistent. It seems to be pretty much set it and forget it. I haven't had any overflows or skimmate going from dry to wet at different times of the day, although I have heard reports from other BK owners that theirs has overflowed from time to time. The production from day to day seems to stay the same, regardless of how much skimmate has formed on the riser tube. I think this may have something to do with the massive amount of air that is pushing that skimmate up the riser tube. The skimmate quality is also awesome. I have had this skimmer produce dry chunky skimmate and right now it is producing a fairly moist skimmate that is very dirty but is producing a lot of it. I have never had another skimmer that you can fine tune the skimmate so much. With most of the other skimmers I've used you can set it for either wet or dry and not usually much in between. The BK can be set for any "wetness" of skimmate imaginable.
COMPLAINTS:
The complaints I have are small and probably not even worth mentioning. But since I want to keep this an honest review, I am including them. First and foremost, the biggest problem with this skimmer is that the bubble plate cannot be removed to clean the are underneath it. And this are DOES collect detritus. Another complaint is that the drain tube for the collection cup is very short. You pretty much have to take your cup that you drain the skimmat into and hold it right next to the cup while you drain the skimmate, which is kind of tedious. If the tube was longer, you could just set your cup next to the sump and stick the tube into and not have to hold the cup in an uncomfortable positon while filling it. It also gets more and more "uncomfortable" as you cup gets fuller and heavier. I feel that there should be a ball valve on the drain tube instead of a plug. On the outlet of the ball valve you should be able to add an extension to the tubing for draining. This way, when you need to unscrew the collection cup for cleaning, you just take that extension off and the tubing won't get in the way.
My last complaint is about the pump performance and this only pertains to the internal models. I was told that you get the same air input into the skimmer regardless of how you have the nozzle tuned on the pump. This was a major selling point on the internal vs. external for me because I figured you could control how much water was going through the skimmer (somewhat similar to a recirculating skimmer) while still pushing the same amount of air through it. But it seems that the full potential of air intake is not acheieved unless the nozzle is completely removed from the pump. However, I do not have an air flow meter to verify that there is any difference in air intake. It could be that the increase in water intake is creating more turbulence in the skimmer, which makes it appear that more air is taken in as the bubbles are being pushed all over the place. I would really like to get an air flow meter to check this. But right now, it seems that you can only maximize the skimmer's performance by removing the nozzle, which also pumps more water through the skimmer and decreases dwell time. However, for my application I do like the nozzle removed so I can push more water through the skimmer anyways. This allows me to process more water at a time and remove more solids from the system rather than having them settle out in the sump. But the trade-off could be that the reduced contact time is not allowing the more stubborn proteins that need a 120 second contact time to be removed.
I think that is pretty much it. I truly am amazed at the performance of this skimmer. Is it worth the price? That is hard to say. I guess that really boils down to a person's personal opinion.
***********************************************
And here are some new comments:
The BK continues to be a solid skimmer. Easy to adjust to any type of skimmate I want. Although I can no longer get it to skim dry but I think it is because there are no longer enough nutrients in the water. I have been running it very wet for quite some time. Wet to the point where I do not get foam, just water droplets that collect, yet the skimmate is still a fairly dark color, not the light tea that you usually see from wet skimming. I am skimming about 1 gallon per day.
I have found that the skimmer does still skim best with the nozzle either removed or uscrewed almost all the way. Heinz was over at Klaus's and said they hooked up an air pump and watt meter and found that when the nozzle is removed, the RD sucks up twice as much electricity and half as much air. So it is only an illusion in the skimmer body that there is more air going into the skimmer with the nozzle removed. I now run my nozzle unscrewed almost all the way.
Cleaning the bottom of the skimmer is a nuisance but not impossible. Once per month I use a turkey baster with soft tubing attached to blow out the detritus from the bottom while the skimmer is running.
I have encountered another minor issue. That is the silencer. After a couple months, the silencer got filled with debris from the air and began to restrict the air intake. The silencer is glued together so you cannot take it apart to clean it or swap out the filter floss. I ran some RO water through it and it was working like new instantly without even letting it dry. But I wonder just how many times can dirt build up and then RO water run through it before it needs to be replaced.
:beer: But if they talk sh** they better help me do it right!
