20 Best Protein Skimmer For 75 Gallon Tank (2023 Updated)

Me and my mom bought 2 of these to replace our instant ocean skimmers. We owned these for about a year until we started having issues with them. In fact I just got done messing with mine as it hangs off the side of my sump.

In the last 2 days this piece of junk over flowed and flooded my bedroom and leaked down into the basement and drained my tank a good way down. Before anyone comments – YES I have dialed down the flow both on the included coupler and on the collection cylinder, but the pump has a mind of its own and fluctuates water pressure.

Which brings me to my next complaint- The included water control coupler. This works fine for a few months until the seal breaks down on the dial and then the dial pops off due to the water pressure and now instead of water flowing into the cylinder its shooting out the side of the coupler.

So to cut this short see below I will bullet point the negatives: * Included vinyl hose to route from skimming cylinder to pump is too short to allow pump to be fully submerged in a wet dry sump * Included coupler water control valve breaks down overtime- dial pops off which water shoots out of the hole the dial fits in- which stops the skimming process.

*Too bulky and large foot print with pump to neatly organize in a wet dry sump. TOTAL pain to situate in a wet dry sump with limited space. * Pump is cheap- when it wears down you’ll need to replace it – New pump for this model will run you about $100 which is $20 cheaper – than buying a whole new setup again- trust me just went through this- spent $100 on a replacement pump which goes through phases of super weak – to stand back now entering fire hydrant mode (which helped flood my floors) I just ordered an Octopus 110 Skimmer.

This lil piece of junk is now sitting in a bucket awaiting disposal tomorrow.

Review/Discussion is about the 220G. Despite the productive criticism stated here – I like the unit, it is working well and getting out some foul smelling “Skimate”. Between water changes, the installation of nitrate absorbing filter pads and the protein skimmer – my reef aquarium water is crystal clear, and has no odor to it.

Read on. Several issues discussed here: 1) Items missing in Parts Diagram (but were with the product). 2) Instructions do not discuss the items missing in parts diagram. 3) O-Ring Treatment prior to assembly 4) Acrylic does not seem thick – I was very careful in my handling of the product, including how tightly I secured the collection cup to the main body.

FYI – To minimize the possibility of leaks – there are two rubber O-Rings that the technical support said to put Petroleum Jelly on. First one is obvious where the collection cup is secured to the main body.

The other one is the red air intake valve – that is leaking on my unit. This has to be pulled up to get to the O-Ring. This is NOT in the instructions – though to be fair – having worked on my home swimming pool – I saw the big O-Ring and thought I should coat it with something but did not, I did not know about the valve O-Ring.

Product is working well and was easy to configure. That being said the first issue regards the instructions that came with it. The parts diagram is incomplete. And instructions regarding the missing items are missing.

There is fortunately a picture of the completely assembled skimmer on the instructions. Items missing on parts diagram regards the venturi valve (separate cylinder on 220G), tube connecting it to the impeller screen cover.

This items supplies the air that is mixed with the water on intake. Missing in the instructions is the following: 1) Discussion of the setup of the Venturi Air Supply, connecting tube and valve. 2) Discussion on O-Ring treatment.

I set the unit up – got it going (easily enough) and did some work for a few hours to make sure all was OK knowing I would be in the next morning. Came in next morning to find a small puddle (less than 1/4 cup) of water that had leaked out – mainly from the air valve adjustment.

I called the tech support number who was very good at managing the issue. All I had to do was email the product purchase email from drsfosterandsmith. com and my shipping info. They are in the process of shipping me a new skimmer body.

Coralife may save themselves some return issues by at least addressing the O-Ring in their instructions and possibly including a small packet of lubricant/petroleum jelly. I will address the O-Ring lubricant issue tomorrow and see if it takes care of the leak.

Meanwhile I have a small bucket underneath the skimmer. Meanwhile our clients that come through our office see it and ask what it does (I don’t have a sump tank setup yet – that is a project for this summer!).

They think it looks cool and space-age.

I just installed this and so far so good. But have to admit, the instruction manual, really was poorly written and needs to be updated. The pictures don’t match what you actually get. Guessing there have been some design changes.

Here are some things that were left out: First of all, there are two water flow controls, one on the pump and one above water. The one on the pump was closed with no indication where to open or how much to open.

When I fist started it, the skimmer and collection cup filled full of water and overflowed. Once I adjusted the water flow on the outside and drained everything, it seemed to correct the issue, but no bubbles.

Finally figured out I had to adjust the flow control under water. Then it overflowed with bubbles and water. Tweaking the two finally stabilized the water and bubble flow and everything seems to be ok now.

Second, there is a cap with a hose that goes over the pump, you can see it on the box, but it is not in the manual. Need to attach that and then the other end that is sealed and has a vent just kind of sits on the outside of the tank.

The picture above shows it “resting” on the outside of the skimmer to the left of the red flow control nob in a recess, that is not actually there but you can leave the tube hanging over the edge of the tank.

Other than that so far, it is powerful and nicely priced. Directions need improvement and it ill take some tweaking to get everything to work right.

Ran this on a 65 gallon all in one. This is a well built simple efficient skimmer. The build quality surprised me as I had a bad previous experience with the same manufacturer. It was rock solid and perfectly constructed as well as sturdy.

The performance was excellent and for the money and footprint could ask for nothing more. I would buy again and definitely recommend to anyone.

It removes a nice skimmate when working well. Here is the problem; It needs to be cleaned every 2 to 3 weeks or it stops skimming and pours microbubbles into the tank. After cleaning, it’s not unusual for it to overflow for 2 or 3 days.

It’s hard to adjust and has no pump or air adjustment, so when it goes nuts you really have no solution. Spend a little more elsewhere.

The Aquamaxx WS-1 protein skimmer is the perfect choice if you want a quality built, dead quiet skimmer for all in one aquariums that will accommodate it’s dimensions. It produces massive amounts of skimate effectively.

I placed mine on egg crating in 8 1/2″ of water. I ran it first in about 2 cups of vinegar and about 3 gallons of water in a 5 gal. bucket for about 3 hours. When I first started it up in the aquarium it started to blow out for a while.

After blowing into the air inlet, it immediately stopped blowing out. I concluded that it was either air locked, or somehow blocked near the pump at the air inlet tube. Immediately after doing this, it stabilized and I was able to adjust the cup lower to produce the desired skimate consistency.

A+!!.

When I got this yesterday, it was super noisy and I wanted to smash it. But after trying to raise my pH level I figured out how to silence it. All’s I did was get a long air hose, remove the original air hose that it came with and replaced it with the long air hose.

I put the other end of the long air hose out my window to get fresher air to raise my pH. In the mix of doing that, it silence it for the most part. The only noise coming from it is a motor noise that is little bit louder then my sun sun filter.

Only down fall about this product is how big the motor is. If I take out the motor in the tank ill have room for more fish or live rock. To get a idea how big the motor is. Make a fist 👊 and it will be just about that size give or take.

When you put the connection piece on it’s about two fist size(you have to put it on). Minus one star for that reason. Other then that I’m happy. I don’t need to get a new $300-450 bec of noise issues.

Overall not a bad product. You just need to monkey around with it to shut it up and for the price I don’t mind. Btw my water is clear. Micro bubbles do show but not a excessive amont like the fluval ps1.

You can spend $20/40 more and get this instead. I highly recommend that. Thanks for the good quality product for a good price.

It works great, I was surprised how well actually! I took down a star for 2 reasons: 1) The setup instructions are horrible. Notice the 2 clear tubes, the longer one goes to the motor to control how much air gets inside, the shorter one goes to the cup to allow you to drain it.

Also, before plugging in, close both of the clear hoses all the way, also open (counterclockwise) the 2 red flow controls to max. once plugged in, slowly adjust clear tube going to the motor. oh and the motor plugs into the middle tube on the skimmer.

2) The second complain I have is the lip that is used to tighten the skimmer when it’s hanging is too narrow, instead of allowing me to tighten the screws so the skimmer wont move, my aquarium lip is too wide (mine is about 1 inch), so instead of sitting between the lip, it sits on top, rendering the screws useless and causing my skimmer to sit too high.

It seems like I can remove that lip, so I’ll try removing it at the risk of damaging it. If I could, I’d give it 4. 5 stars.

This is my first experience with a protein skimmer and so far this has been a great skimmer!! It has been set up for a month or so and started producing skimmate after about a week. The only problem i had with it was the water outlet pipes were shoved in the unit to far and restricting the water from leaving the unit and causing the collection cup to fill up too quick.

There was a utube video about it, so after i pulled them out a little i have had absolutely no problems and it is skimming perfect. You cant beat the quality of this product for the price anywhere!! I am using mine as a hang on style but you can also use this in a sump setup.

This is the only product Ill give 5 stars w/o hesitation. Ive had this skimmer running 5 plus years now and never replaced a part. For those claiming its noisy, theyre doing something wrong. You can literally adjust the flow with the knob, and if the pump is clean, youre not hearing any noise.

Furthermore, its a solid built. I purchased the Reef Octopus the same year as the Skimz. Skimz is out of business and my Skimz skimmer need parts and now in a box useless. Im using the reef Octopus on my Red Sea Reefer 350 and its keeping a well stock tank clean.

This should be in the BRS top list of recommended items. My only complaint is the size of the cup, I wish it was bigger. Other than that, this is money well spent. Do the math 5+years of actively working for for under $300.

Thats less than $0. 15 per day and I believe I have at least 10 more years. If I ever need to replace the motor, parts are easily accessible. So I definitely recommend this product.

I really wanted a Reef Octopus skimmer, and got this one because it was the only one that would fit in the skimmer/media chamber of my sump for a 65g mixed reef aquarium. The break-in period took less than a week.

It’s constantly sucking brown foam and gunk out, and has improved my pH and ORP. The pump is very powerful for its size and extremely quiet. It’s also very easy to disassemble and clean.

This is my second attempt at salt water as I started keeping salt water about 20 years ago. I love this skimmer so much! An hour after I installed it on my tank it started skimming tons of junk out of my aquarium.

My water is crystal clear, it pulls so much out of my water column. Sometimes it does get a little noisy but nothing I cant ignore. I definitely recommend this skimmer.

Very disappointed with the product. It’s difficult to dial in. The water level must be perfect. Had to build a riser in order for it work in the Red Sea Reefer sump. Adding a float switch to prevent overflows was a pain, while the competition comes with this feature.

The only benefit to this product is the drain hose. I would not buy another one and can’t wait to replace it.

This was the first protein skimmer I have ever bought for my first ever reef tank. I read and heard a lot of mixed reviews on this product, after watching a few videos I decided to go with this skimmer.

My tank and sump are ready and all I needed was my protein skimmer. Recieved it 4/7/2019. As I was assembling it I saw that the power line had a small cut in the wire and what ever piece I included in the picture is broken as well.

Now I have to wait for a new pump and a new piece. I will update this review when I recieve the stuff to get it going. Not a good way to start.

It works great. It took about two weeks for me to dial it in. I had a Reef Octopus that was discontinued and couldn’t get a motor for. This skimmer works as well or better. the only thing I miss is the old one had a collar that unscrewed to remove the bowl to dump , this one you have to pry up because it uses silicon seals to hold the cup in place.

I would buy it again.

I placed it in my sump and within 2 hours i had a half of a water bottle of skimmate, this is a brand new sump with rodi water that I added salt to, now you can see that water is crystal clear, can’t wait to apply the entire sump system to my display tank.

Only downside is that there are no assembly instructions with this. I watched a video from the manufacturer on how to put the skimmer into operation. Surprisingly, it was skimming in less than a week.

It usually takes longer to break a skimmer in. Overall, it’s not very loud. One thing I would change is to not have the intake and exhaust ports sticking out at different lengths on the skimmer. Trying to keep the skimmer back far enough that the plastic portion of the glass lid can be trimmed enough so the lid closes all the way and the skimmer sits back farther on the exhaust side.

So I’ve had my Classic [REDACTED] set up for about a week now. I had struggled on what brand to go with, lack of accurate reviews made it difficult, in the end I bought Reef Octopus, after 7 days of use I can give a accurate description of my Skimmer, First of all there absolutely is a break in period, during this time, about 4-5 days, your new skimmer will act very inconsistent, it won’t have that perfect foam head, won’t really pull out a lot.

It will definitely overflow if u don’t keep an eye on it, I just let collection cup elevated higher then normal for a few days, then when you look at it after 4-7 days, and all of a sudden, that foam head has formed, it’s pulling out all kinds of nastys.

And operating like a high end skimmer should. It comes with a air valve to adjust air intake, and if your putting this on a new set up, your def going to want to use this, it’s adjusts the skimmer to ur lower dissolved solids tank, I felt it was important to say all this in the review because, most if not all of the other negative reviews of this product, is based solely on the break in period performance and not the stabilized performance that comes a little later, my skimmer hasn’t over flowed in a few days, collection cup has solids in it, and skimmer performs perfectly.

I highly recommend this product,.

I guess I should start off by saying the skimmer is working fine now. But I did have some issues until I figured it out. As noted by others, the “instruction manual” is a bad joke. I’ll just leave it at that.

After I got it put together and hung on the aquarium, upon powering up, it immediately started pumping clear foam into the collection cup that filled the cup in a few seconds, even with the cup set very high.

I put the air valve thingie back on and cut off some of the air to get it to stop flowing into the cup. At this point the skimmer was blasting bubbles into the outflow chamber and into the aquarium. Also, the water was gurgling up a storm on the outlet pipe.

I decided to let it settle for a few days to “break in”, but I was close to packing this up for a return trip. I was curious what would happen in the case of a short term power failure so I did some testing.

When cutting off the power for a few seconds and then back on, 50% of the time the outflow chamber would overflow water onto the floor. Well, that won’t work. In addition, the microbubbles were crawling up between the body and the cup and dripping onto the floor.

I had to tie a rag around the skimmer to soak up the water as it bubbled out. If I lowered the cup so the bubbles would not creep up, the cup would fill with white foam in a few seconds. I would have to live with the aquarium any time the skimmer was running? I tried putting some bubble foam in the outlet chamber but that did nothing to help.

While removing that, I knocked off the elbow piece on the outlet pipe, and it was like a miracle happened. The skimmer sopped putting bubbles into the tank, the cup stopped overflowing, no gurgling, and the bubbles stopped creeping up the side of the cup.

Apparently the water LEVEL is the key to the whole thing. I can only assume now that this skimmer was designed for a rimless aquarium with the water level an inch or two below the top. I have a standard rimmed aquarium and like to keep my water level near the top so one cannot see a space between the water level and the plastic rim.

This was my downfall. Rather than keep my aquarium level down 2 inches, I just left the elbow off of the outlet pipe. The skimmer now works like a champ. I get a quarter inch of “dark tea” per day. I have a very light load with only 4 small fish in a 75 gallon setup that is only 4 weeks old.

I have no doubt that this skimmer will do well even after I add more fish in the coming weeks.

This is my first skimmer. Ive always been slightly intimidated by them. The assembly instructions for this are less than desirable. The build is good. The best part is the ease of function. I assembled, tested in a bath, and then straight into the sump.

It has been making great skimmate in the first couple hours and with the pump and outlet control is easy to tune. Its not the cheapest, or the most expensive, but paying for something that works without hours of fiddling is well worth it.

I really like the huge skimmer cup which allows large intervals between dumping it. Like many things in life, if all reef octopus work this well I will be a brand loyal hobbyists for my duration.

Bought this back in March of 2016, this is used in my (heavy stocked mixed reef) JBJ 45 tank. Fits perfect in the inner chamber, magnets hold very good, pulls tons of skimmate out every week, all around a great skimmer.

The cup does have some hard-to-reach spots when cleaning, but with a few paper towels, can be wiped clean. I usually do a full tear down & cleaning once a year for general maintenance. With that said, ive only had 2 issues with this unit, one is not the skimmers fault but is worth noting: Water level is crutial for optimal performance.

Because of my tank setup, I had to create & add a refugium/sump, this occasionally causes water level fluctuations which causes the skimmer not able to skim, but like I said, not the units fault. Now the only real design/operation issue Ive had is that the tube routing down to the pump causes a 90 degree bend in the tube.

Overtime, this bend gets clogged from overflowing skimmate & needs cleaning which requires full removal & disassembly. I corrected this by grinding out the pump bracket, making the space for tube attachment to the pump bigger, instead of a 90 degree bend, its now roughly 45 degrees, increasing air flow & reducing build up at the bend.

This is hard to visualize without seeing the unit in hand but I like tinkering with things so this didnt bother me. But is the only reason why I didnt score this 5 stars. I still think the overall performance was great & id recommend this product.

Hope this helps :).

I have one of these on a 27 Marineland Cube with four small fish and a bunch of soft corals. It works well. I’ve had mine about a year, cleaned it once and had no mechanical problems. I’ve had no trouble with the magnet mounts.

The skimmer is super quiet and, for its size, removes a fair amount of gunk once it’s dialed in. Given its cost, it’s a good supplement to the water changes so crucial to keeping a small tank. You can’t expect miracles, but you can expect it to do its job.

I did a lot of research for nano skimmers and found this to be the best match, it is small, quiet and seems to perform its job very well. I’m able to pull out pretty thick black stuff on a regular once a week basis using this thing.

Make sure that if you are using this in sump like I am you have high enough of a water level for it to work. I recommend that you have a minimum of 10″ which gives you room to move it up and down in the water.

Skimming frequency can be adjusted by moving the collection cup up or down – however if your water level is too low in the sump this will not make it work.

Don’t buy it! If you have already bought it- Return It! ~especially if you purchased it for a primary filter. First, it releases a gazillion micro bubbles into your reef tank. I have tried almost all of the fixes I found online plus a few more and there is no good fix.

When I finally thought I might have found one, it developed another problem. What you run into: not enough water in filter tank for skimmer; too much water in filter tank resulting in too much bubble activity in skimmer cone and filter tank level getting too high; a gazillion micro bubbles going into your reef tank and a whole lot of irritation trying to find a fix that actually works.

I only needed it for the skimmer part and I tried almost everything I could find plus a few I thought up and this thing is fail straight from the factory!.

I put this filter skimmer on a 20 Gallon saltwater reef tank that I was struggling to keep clean. I was doing weekly water changes with two large Clownfish and some snails and corals , This filter is replacing a 100 sea clone skimmer and it is doing an amazing job at not only filtering but also skimming the tank.

The skimmer part is a little noise but not bad. The skimmer part was the reason I bought this filter and it is doing the job. All in all I think this filter is worth the money and seriously think of adding this filter to some of my other tanks.

Nice filter skimmer and heater in one. Works great!!!

I have this skimmer for about 4 years. At start it seemed okay. But then I had problems after problems: 1. The air intake micro adjustment screw was too lose and was screwing in by itself over time due to vibrations.

This was reducing air intake close to zero in a few days. I had to add some kind of a spring to add some tension for it. 2. The skimmer pump is rated as 18W. In fact, it consumes about 58W. It is very inefficient comparing to DC pump skimmers.

3. Time to time the pump would not start by itself. I had to blow into the air intake tube to make it start. 4. Over the time the pump output degraded to the point that even with the fully closed out skimmer outlet, it could not keep level of water in the skimmer high enough still consuming 58W.

Thoughtful cleaning with acids didn’t help. In the end I retrofitted Jebao DCP 2500 pump in to this skimmer using 3d printed parts. Now it runs with 50% of power setting for the pump that consumes just 14W and produces perfect foam.

At 100% power and 18-20 watts it makes skimmer overflow with completely open outlet and air intake. So the Nyos 160 skimmer has a good body design (except that air screw) and the bad pump.

I eally like this skimmer, the engineering is very clever, it has a large skimmate collection cup for such a small unit and also has a little tube to prevent the skimmate from overflowing on your flow.

The unit fits great in my 20g All In One tank my back chamber is only 2. 4 inches and so most nano skimmers wouldnt fit but this one does. The lone flaw is that the water level has to be pretty high for the skimmer to maintain its siphon.

In my opinion you really should use an ATO with this unit or the water will evaporate and the skimmer will lose siphon. As i am adding an ato to my tank its not an issue for me but might be for some.

I have a 20gal drop-off AIO tank from IM. Im an old-school reefer, who thinks every tank, no matter how big or small, benefits greatly from a skimmer that works well. Id been using a $100 K1 nano skimmer for a year, and hated it.

It skimmed either super wet or nothing at all, was poorly designed/tuned, was poorly made, and I had to break part of it off to get it to fit at all when I got it. This skimmer is well-designed, and fits easily in my AIO.

I have only had it up and running for an hour, and it already is producing wet skimmate. For the price, I am very impressed! I just hope that pump is durable and that it performs even better as it breaks in.

(The adjustment knob for controlling the water level is unnecessaryId leave it wide open and use the adjustable hang-on bracket to set the water height. ) In terms of complaints, I wish that there was a way to easily connect it to my CO2 scrubber.

As-is, it looks like I would need to drill into it, and modify it to use my scrubber. Ill probably just leave it as-is, and accept that my tank will slowly drop a bit in pH to less-than desirable levels.

It also looks like it will be a pain to clean, due to the nooks and crannies from to the unusual design it has. Its too soon to give a review of how well this will truly perform and last, obviously, but I will be sure to post a new/updated review in the future if necessary.

For now, I think Ive finally found a good skimmer for the smaller IM AIO tanks!.