Maintenance costs
The pump PSK1000 with brush impeller on a monopump skimmer has been given by Sicce for a declared consumption of about 16 watt, that is 140 kwh every year, and an estimated cost of 38 euro if the cost per kwh remained stable at 0,27 euro. Red Sea otherwise declares an electric consumption of 25 watt, that is about 59 euro every year.
We, as usual, measured the consumption.
We found an electric consumption lower than declared, with almost 23 watt. Instead of 59 euro, it would be 54 euro per year. I’d say that at the end the different is insignificant. The maintenance cost would be a fair 6 euro per month.
Conclusions
As you understood we really loved this skimmer, and in particular we appreciated the absence of any needed operation of cleaning. It only requires to rotate the internal brushes once a day and to drain out the glass when it fills up. The values of the aquarium has been perfect for all the period we used it. The construction is wonderful, and we believe that the price of 599 euro of this skimmer perfectly matches its performances, and plus it offers the absence of maintenance and a very well build skimmer.
During the use it has been extremely regular and efficient, and a value of sucked air that surprised us. The measured value is higher of the 40%: INCREDIBLE!. Easy to open and clean, but it doesn’t need that, and that’s the news of which we will hardly do without. Also goes for the window for seeing the level of water in the glass: it’s so useful that we can’t believe it hasn’t been done before. But Red Sea did.
So according to us it’s appropriate for an aquarium with SPS corals and fish until 500 liters, but if we talked of less populated aquariums, with only fish or with soft corals, we could try, I think, to go over the limit of 800-1000 liters.
