A Review of the CAD Lights Pipeless Skimmer

Mine emits a noticeable hum but not loud enough to be heard unless there is no other sound in the room.I would call that quiet.I would check the pump to make sure it is seated and aligned properly.It attaches with just a interference (?) fit and can be wiggled back and forth,it could be twisted so that it is touching the skimmer base and causing some vibration.

 

Sadley that is not the case. I checked the pump it's not touching any of the sides. The pump is quiet if I take it out of the skimmer and holding it my hand , but I can feel it's got a lot of vibrations, if it even touches the skimmer body it's making about twice the sound of my old tunze 9015. Loud enough not to be permitted use in my living room.

 

I would let it run and give it a week or so to break in,it could quiet down considerably after breakin.It also might be good to contact Cadlights and tell them about it,they probably would replace your pump if necessary,their customer service seems very good.

 

its worth a shot i guess.. althought i would had thought it would had begun to be more quiet after 2 days.. I will try and give it a week, and contact Scott from Cad light, and see what the say, could be the pump is deffective.

 

So only reply from CAD, is that i can pay for a new pump. Even thought i in several emails told them, that the problem had ben there from the beginning. What a wonderfull customer service, and useless warrenty service they provide so now they just seem to be ignoring my mails, guess its easier than solving a problem.. So now i am off to hunt for a 3´rd party pump that can be made to fit on this skimmer...

 

if anyone is still following this thread. I just set up my PLS-100 that I bought from marinedepot.com. at first opening the box, the unit is very well packed and construction looked really good and well built. The first discrepency that I picked up with the unit is the air line tube was too short to connect from the pump to the muffler to screw it on top of the skimmer cup. Didn't stress it too much since it's sitting in the sump and i just lay the air line over the side of the sump. One great feature that I picked up on prior to buying the model is that CADLights fixed the self adjusting issue. People were using the "hoover belt" mod on the skimmer because of the vibrations. Now they include this little "clamp" that attaches to the bottom of the skimmer that holds the chamber from spinning and causing changes in adjustment. Had the skimmer running now for about 4 hours and noise is not bad at all and after setting the water level in it around the neck of the skimmer, it started producing some foam but not yet in the cup. I do love the footprint that it has and it really can fit in almost any size sump. I have a proflex model 1 sump and it's tight. This skimmer dropped right in and by seeing the height of the skimmer, it's definitely up to the task of handling 60 gallon tank at heavy loads as advertised.

 

Hey rc - thanks for the review - check out what they did for the 2014 line here:
http://www.3reef.com/forums/3reef-radar/first-look-2014-cad-lights-pls-skimmer-line-150661.html

 

great skimmer.....i don't even want to look at 2014 lol...i just bought mine and if i knew that the new model was coming out, i would've waited instead of kicking myself in the butt for it.