Reef Octopus: Super Reef vs. Hurricone

I've been hearing a lot of good things about the Reef Octopus Hurricone line of skimmers. The folks at World Wide Corals originally turned me on to the Hurricone after they got one of the first models and put it on their 300g display tank.

When I decided to up my tank size I also decided to upgrade my skimmer and the folks at WWC had nothing but good things to say about it. Then someone else brought up the new Super Reef skimmers from Reef Octopus. I sent a note to Dave at Coral Vue to get his input on the two skimmers and his response was certainly interesting.

It turns out the two skimmers have an identical body with the Super Reef having a new, improved exit assembly utilizing a precision gate valve (which I think will be nice). The main difference is the pump. The Hurricone uses a hand-modified Askoll pump and the Super Reef uses the new Bubble Blaster. The Super Reef is less expensive than the Hurricone because it uses a production pump vs. the hand-modified Askoll, but Dave said that the Super Reef actually has superior numbers.

I thought the folks here may want to know this interesting tidbit of info. I'll be giving a review of the Super Reef after I get the new tank up and running, but now I can share that the folks at WWC put the Hurricone ALMOST on par with the Bubble King they run on one of their frag tanks. Considering that the new Super Reef will be better than the Hurricone and is between 1/3 and 1/2 the price of a comparable Bubble King, I think the Super Reef is a good buy.

 

To be fair, the Askoll pump is a better pump. I'm not saying you made a mistake at all. The Luguna based Askolls are proven and are very good pumps with good electronics. The Hurricones are just like you said, Octos with Askolls on them. The Askoll is more than capable of running a 300g tank.

The Bubble Blaster will have to prove themselves over time. People are getting good numbers out of Askolls... up to 100-105 SCFH. Same as the Bubble Blasters. Some things I have seen are people quoting pumps stats, and not using actual numbers off actual skimmers. Like the BB 3000 on the XP 2000s. The pump can do 50 scfh, but it is too much pump for the skimmer. So you have to run it in shallow water to put more back pressure on it. So the pump isn't actually doing 50 scfh, but it is certainly doing well. I would like to see some actual numbers on 5000s on real skimmers. Although again, I'm not saying it isn't putting out good number. But I would just like to see actual numbers on the Akoll and BB skimmers.

So far folks have been saying the BB are less than quiet. Yet they have very good features and cost less. So as long as they hold up over time, they will be a big hit. But they simply do not have the quality Laguna based pumps do such as the Askolls, Air Stars, and Red Dragons of Bubble King.

 

anybody else using hurricone lol