I have an Octo Extreme 160 for my 55 gallon tank with 15 gallon sump. A little overkill but when I get in a grove I'm feeding the tank 2-3 cubes a day to feed the fish and LPS so I decided to go big...
I first started out using the stock pinwheel that came with the pump. It was ok but had the dreaded startup problems that plague the Sicce 2500's. It came with a paddle wheel as well that was meant to be used to do a mesh wheel. So I did the mesh wheel mod and noticed much better performance out of the skimmer. I replaced it every 4-6 months.
It was coming time to replace the mesh about a month ago and I was out of mesh and to be honest about halfway through the age of the mesh I was noticing inconsistent performance, I would have to adjust the outlet valve every few days and it wasn't a nice frothy head of skimmate. So I was looking into some of the pinwheel upgrades out there for the pump. I heard all about the ATB purple pinwheel and when it first came out people where raving about it. Cheapest place I could find it for came in at $30 + shipping. But I had started to notice a lot of people weren't happy with the long term results of the PPW. People were starting to change over to the AquaMaxx Large Red Devil Needle Wheel. And let me tell you holy smokes this pinwheel is awesome!
I put it on yesterday and at first I was a little PO'ed because it wasn't very bubbly in the skimmer at all, like my mesh mod was. But after a few hours this thing is kicking up some serious froth! Best part it's only $20 + shipping! This morning the froth was even better! So I highly recommend this inexpensive upgrade to a Sicce 2500. And FWIW I must have unplugged it in and out over 10 times yesterday to see if it would start up and it did every single time!
I first started out using the stock pinwheel that came with the pump. It was ok but had the dreaded startup problems that plague the Sicce 2500's. It came with a paddle wheel as well that was meant to be used to do a mesh wheel. So I did the mesh wheel mod and noticed much better performance out of the skimmer. I replaced it every 4-6 months.
It was coming time to replace the mesh about a month ago and I was out of mesh and to be honest about halfway through the age of the mesh I was noticing inconsistent performance, I would have to adjust the outlet valve every few days and it wasn't a nice frothy head of skimmate. So I was looking into some of the pinwheel upgrades out there for the pump. I heard all about the ATB purple pinwheel and when it first came out people where raving about it. Cheapest place I could find it for came in at $30 + shipping. But I had started to notice a lot of people weren't happy with the long term results of the PPW. People were starting to change over to the AquaMaxx Large Red Devil Needle Wheel. And let me tell you holy smokes this pinwheel is awesome!
I put it on yesterday and at first I was a little PO'ed because it wasn't very bubbly in the skimmer at all, like my mesh mod was. But after a few hours this thing is kicking up some serious froth! Best part it's only $20 + shipping! This morning the froth was even better! So I highly recommend this inexpensive upgrade to a Sicce 2500. And FWIW I must have unplugged it in and out over 10 times yesterday to see if it would start up and it did every single time!
