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As some of you know my old skimmer died and I was fortunate enough to borrow a loaner from a few people on the ARC till I got my new skimmer in. Well, I got my Octopus Extreme skimmer in a few weeks ago from reef speciality... those guys are top notch btw. They stayed in constant contact with us and shipped these things on a special shipment just for us at their cost... That's amazing service. Anyways, I wasn't sure which way to go with a new skimmer so I picked Mufret's mind as he's an equipment guru of sorts 
. His thoughts on this skimmer is that it is the best bang for your buck... and I have to agree.
Anyways, I just recently installed it. Here's a pic of it after giving it a good wash. It's got a small footprint and fits really easily under the stand. It appears to be about 8x8x23. The build quality looks to be superb. Its nice thick cell cast acrylic and I can't find a flaw in it anywhere. The pump is the same sicce pump that you find on some of the most expensive skimmers out on the market.
It's only been running for a few days and WOW... this thing is quieter than any of my older skimmers and creates an amazing amount of bubbles and skimmate. I can see why the bubblemasters and new tunze doc skimmers use this same pump... The skimmer is easy to tune and I find I can easily go from wet skimmate to dry without having to do a gate mod. This skimmer also has the added flexibility of using either the mesh wheel or the flexible needle wheel. I tried both the needle wheel and the mesh wheel and its not even close... the mesh wheel makes so many more super fine bubbles. I imagine for smaller tanks the needle wheel would be sufficient but seeing the solid block of tiny air bubbles in the skimmer makes the mesh mod worth it. It looks like there's absolutely no water in the skimmer at all... its just all bubbles.
Anyways, I'm sure I'll run into some flaws and downsides to this skimmer eventually and I'll keep you guys updated. So far so good though...
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. His thoughts on this skimmer is that it is the best bang for your buck... and I have to agree.Anyways, I just recently installed it. Here's a pic of it after giving it a good wash. It's got a small footprint and fits really easily under the stand. It appears to be about 8x8x23. The build quality looks to be superb. Its nice thick cell cast acrylic and I can't find a flaw in it anywhere. The pump is the same sicce pump that you find on some of the most expensive skimmers out on the market.
It's only been running for a few days and WOW... this thing is quieter than any of my older skimmers and creates an amazing amount of bubbles and skimmate. I can see why the bubblemasters and new tunze doc skimmers use this same pump... The skimmer is easy to tune and I find I can easily go from wet skimmate to dry without having to do a gate mod. This skimmer also has the added flexibility of using either the mesh wheel or the flexible needle wheel. I tried both the needle wheel and the mesh wheel and its not even close... the mesh wheel makes so many more super fine bubbles. I imagine for smaller tanks the needle wheel would be sufficient but seeing the solid block of tiny air bubbles in the skimmer makes the mesh mod worth it. It looks like there's absolutely no water in the skimmer at all... its just all bubbles.
Anyways, I'm sure I'll run into some flaws and downsides to this skimmer eventually and I'll keep you guys updated. So far so good though...
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