Tunze

[ujohnk]

Has anyone used one of these or know if they are any good?
http://www.tunze.com/eng/kat/107600.htm
thanks for any help.

 

[dukecola]

The best and most efficient skimmer I ever had or seen was a Tunze, the hang on kind that sat in the tank. Not sure if they still make that model, but they have been making skimmers a lot longer than most of these fly by nite skimmer companies. Somewhere in the mid-90's, I think tarrifs or import taxes went up (Probably when Clinton was elected)and they really slowed exporting to the states. You use to see their equipment everywhere, mail order, etc. Not so much anymore. The water pumps they make are powerful and of top quality, so the skimmers have a good input. Were you looking at the in-sump model?

R/Duke

 

[Mouse]

I have allways trusted TUNZE, and allways will. Never heard a bad thing about products or support. Unfortuneately i have never seen these outlets before, im sure they work fine and the principle is sound. My only concerns would be if they were noisy, and you could achive the same area coverage (ie, 50% surface collection, 50% mid water collection) with the use of two seperate bulkheads with the plumbing round the back on the outside of the tank rather than the inside. But i can see the advantages of having just one bulkhead at the surface of the tank as this would enable you to easyly drain the tank to gain access to the bulkhead should it need it. But bulkheads apparently are very trustworthy and in my opinion i would rather have as little plumbing and tubes and stuff in the tank as i could. My system for draining water back to the sump would consist of two bulkheads one just above the waterline and one just below it. The lower BH would have a ball valve to adjust flow causing the water level in the tank to rise and reach the higher, surface skimming BH. all you would have to do is make sure there was enough empty space in your sump for the water to run back into when the system pumps are turned off. If you like them go for it, im sure they do what they say they do.

 

[baconcheese]

I have one in my 210g. I bought it second hand, I find it's ridiculously expensive for a piece of plastic, even here in Europe.

The previous owner cut off the water tube and sealed the opening with silicone, so i only have surface skimming. I don't know why he did it. i suppose with the water tube you have one more thing to clean. the brown colour is awfully drab so i covered mine with black conduit tape (i was afraid spray paint might leak something into the water).

It works real well, however as you can instantly guess, it makes toilet flushing noise all the time. i put in an inline ball valve which suppressed the surging noise in the pipe, and stuck in a airtube through the bulkhead into the pipe to cut out the sucking sound. now it's relatively quiet except for the water hitting the elbow in my sump line, but that's nothing to do with the tunze.

it comes in 2 models with different bulkhead sizes. both can handle high flowrates. i got the smaller size model, and easily expanded the hole with a drill and bought a larger bulkhead.

 

[ujohnk]

Thanks for the help.
John.

 

[Mouse]

Baconcheese, sounds to me like the preveous owner sealed off the lower pipe to avoid possible syphons should the return pump switch off. Especially dangerous with a pipe thats so far down in the aquarium, either that or constraints from rockwork.

 

[baconcheese]

No, I don't think he did it to avoid possible syphons because the pipe is actually higher than the bulkhead (you can't really see it in the picture). It just terminates in the air, no connected directly to the bulkhead.

If the pumps switches off, by the time the water level reaches the bulkhead, the top of the pipe is already above water.

I agree with you on the rock constraints. I imagine it would be impossible to clean the intake behind rocks if it's clogged due to algea,...etc. Besides it looks terribly ugly to have this green pipe in the background!