Ricky's 120 Gallon Mixed Reef

Great looking tank and corals, looks alot bigger than a 120G tank. Looks more like a 150G.


Luna

 

A new beginning . . .

I placed my order for a new generation II Vertex IN-180 protein skimmer. I read many good reviews for this skimmer and it comes with a 1 year manufacturer warranty. It should be here some time next week!

 

wow those are some great looking corals, and that angled shot looks excellent

Steve

 

I was just looking to see what you decided. Personally I can't even believe you run that tank with a EV-120. Do you read Reef Central? Lots of info on the Vertex there, and I have always read good things about them. That 180 is going to be a huge improvement over the 120.

And your tank is really beautiful. Two thumbs up for you.

 

Ha... never mind. Just saw you asking question in the Vertx club thread. I dig Mojo over there. He has been a huge help to me getting skimmers.

 

Thanks, I talked to three different online distributors and they all recommended the Vertex IN-180 for my tank. I was looking to purchase either the Reef Octopus Extreme 200 or Super Reef XP-2000. I'm really excited to get the Vertex. One company said they tested it against the ATB 840 and the IN-180 outperformed it! I know it has to break in so I'm not going to write the skimmer off right away. I'll have to let it break in for a few months before I can say whether or not it is a good skimmer.

 

Thanks!

 

Many folks regard the 840 to be the best balanced skimmer out of the box. The 840 though is only pulling 600-700 lph unmodified. So your 180 is simply a bigger skimmer. A big pin wheel will push it to 900 lph on the 840, but that is maxing out the body at that point.

It isn't enough just to slap a bunch of features together and throw on a big pump. The design has to be balanced. Seems the Vertexes are very well designed. Not a "latest greatest" cone, but it does have a very large radiused collection area to the neck. Can't beat all that for the price for sure. For that design of skimmer I would not look any furhter than Vertex.

I saw a big improvement with my BK 160 on my 90g over my EV-120 and I didn't have any SPS. I think yours will very much appreciate the 180. The numbers on the 180 are similar to my new K2 so I am interested to see how it will turn out on my setup.

 

What difference did you notice in the two skimmers? Will the water be more clear, less algae growth on the rocks and on the glass, etc.?

 

Hard call to make. I did a lot of changes at the time and added a fuge. Plus, I was never hurting to begin with. My nitrates were always managed well. Never had algae problems. I mech filtered agressively and did a lot of WC. With the skimmer and the fuge, I got rid of all my filters and probably do 1/3 of the WCs I used to and my tank has never been better.

As far as the BK, it pulled probably 3 times the skimmate the 120 did. So that is really all I can go by. However, the EV was finicky to keep working at it's best. Mine had a Mag 7 on it too. The best thing about the 160 was that it was truly 100% set and forget. I attribute most of that to a well designed needle wheel. I expect you will have the same results with yours, and I expect the same with my K2. Get the water level dialed it, and totaly forget about it till its time to clean the cup.