The Red Sea RSK600 Reefer Skimmer is a skimmer designed to be maintenance free, more or less, and it’s the only one we saw that aspires more air than declared, much more air.
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We tried it for several months, and now we can say that the RSK600 really surprised us. We bet it will be the first of a long series of skimmers. It’s a real revolution for the skimmers. We used it in an aquarium of 400 liters full of SPS and a lot of fish.
Constructively speaking I’ve never seen something better made. We’re talking of a spectacular acrylic, and it’s obviously made in series. No flaws. Amazing. The sucked air declared is 750 l/h and the treated water 1.500 l/h, but what struck us from the presentation was that this skimmer doesn’t need maintenance. It really goes like promised? Let’s see.
Technical characteristics of the Red Sea RSK600 Reefer Skimmer
- Skimming pump: Sicce PSK1000;
- Electrical consumption: ~25 w;
- Treated air: 750 liters/hour;
- Treated water: 1.500 liters/hour;
- Relationship air/water: 1:2
- Occupied space: 260×240 mm or 290×210 mm based on the orientation of the pump;
- Height: 560 mm;
- Cylinder diameter: 170 mm;
- Suggested level of water in sump: 18-20 cm;
- Price: 599,00 euro.
Construction
The design of the skimmer is really amazing. We already said that the skimmer is built in series and the result is very well seen. Chapeau.
Speaking of the functioning there is a classic layout: internal central pump, upper perforated diffusion plate, conical central body. The skimming pump is a Sicce PSK1000 that takes water a few centimeters from the bottom.
The body of the skimmer has a diameter of 17 cm and it’s about 56 cm of height glass included, for a whole volume of, glass excluded, about 9 liters.
The glass alone has a diameter of 20 cm, and has a capacity of 2 liters, that’s no use in measuring also the internal diameter given that the large countersink would require complicated calculations. Moreover, the glass is graded and we noted that the contained fluid is precise.
The assembling system of the skimmer Red Sea RSK600 is very simple and can be disassembled in a short time. The cylinder stays on the base where the pump is inserted and it can be screwed with plastic elements. The pump sticks in a base and the perforated plate goes above the higher drain. The building is complete with the glass and the muffler. The glass, for once, doesn’t have to be implanted but it sticks right inside the glass: in fact, the covering has board with two brushes on the sides, so by rotating the lid you can clean inside the glass and keeping the skimmer in perfect efficiency day by day.
The glass is pretty light, but it’s so well sticked in the base that it isn’t so easy to extract it. At the base of the glass there’s a long length hole that’s a classic for skimmers. What makes the Red Sea different from other products it’s that it has a quite long rubber tube passing through the hole and ending in a sink. Thanks to this feature you can stretch the tube and drain it inside a container without picking out the glass. This glass remains clean thanks to the brushes and the countersink allows to always see the level of bubbles inside the glass.
The pump given with the Red Sea RSK600 is a Sicce PSK 1000, a very reliable pump used in a large number of skimmers.
Because it’s a monopump configuration we don’t have to deal with the quantity of water entering the skimmer and the relationship water/air has already been decided. The suggested level to keep in sump has to be around 20 cm, with heights between 19 and 22 cm, as the builder planned.
The functioning scheme is simple and linear. Water and air are mixed and placed from down under directly in the pump body that does the mixing work and diffuse them into the cylinder. Even in this case simplicity is a great value. It works flawlessly and stably. It’s hard to see it going wrong.
The only way to intervene on the calibration of the skimmer is rotating the red graded pommel. It adjusts a slider on the base in order to control the level inside the cylinder. The bar of the pommel is really the only downgrade of the skimmer: compared to the solidity of the skimmer, it doesn’t seem so stable…
Set up
The set up is very easy. You take the Red Sea RSK600 from the (beautiful) box and place it in sump. Sic et Simpliciter as the Latins said.
The drain, that is not visible, is free under the base of the skimmer, feature that makes it very silent.
The article continues on page two with the functioning, the performances and our field measurements.
