Downdraft and Beckett skimmers are still extreme foam fractioning workhorses despite the current trends toward cone and needle wheel designs hitting the market and our reefkeeping brothers and sisters in Japan are proving these smaller, finely-crafted skimmers are alive and well in the hobby. Maybe it was the sheer size of downdrafts or noisy and power-hungry pumps that moved the North American market away from these style of skimmers. A few products seen in Japan are capturing this design and making it better and smaller. Take Japanese acrylic manufacturer Shoei with their line of “SPS†skimmers. Without too much description on the company’s website, but from what we discovered on the blog these skimmers use a Beckett injection system. They do feature a sweet skimmer neck that gently seats inside the body allowing for simple removal and cleaning of the collection cup. They showcase the SPS-60 skimmer in action powered by a RIO 3100 pump (900 GPH) and producing some gnarly skimmate. The line features three models SPS-30, SPS-50 and SPS-60. The smallest model SPS-30 measures a compact 7.9†x 15.8†x 7.1†(200mm x 400mm x 180mm) and is rated to handle a highly-stocked reef setup from 23-47 gallons (90-180 liters) or up to a 132 gallon (500 liters) lightly-stocked setup setting you back around $563 (¥49,800). The biggest model SPS-60 measures 8.3†x 20.5 x 7.4†(210mm x 520mm x 200mm) and is rated to handle a 47-105 gallons (180-400 liters) highly-stocked or 264 gallons (1,000 liters) retailing for around $845 (¥74,800).
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