The Mach Protein Skimmers are a new line of high performance needle wheel fractionators from the fine acrylicsmiths at Precision Marine. Like the Orca Pro series from My Reef Creation, the Mach Skimmers will utilize the high capacity Orca needle wheel pump from Reeflo although they’ll be using a stock needle wheel instead of the CNC’d version that MRC is using.
Some other notable differences between the Orca Pro and Mach skimmers will the use of standard-issue Baldor motors on the Mach’s needle wheel Orca pump as opposed to the Baldor Gold motor that MRC uses. The Mach skimmers have a thick silicone gasket in the lid for those times when the weight of the lid is not enough to keep skimmate foam in place and the Mach skimmers have a bottom mounted cup drain compared to the side mounted one of the Orca Pro. Overall the differences between the Mach skimmers and the Orca Pro are slight; MRC is aiming for a no compromise, top of the line solution and Precision Marine is doing the Orca needle wheel a little bit more pragmatically.
In either case, both Orca based skimmers are built with great materials and crafstmanship and they’d both be able to go to war and back without being any less for wear. The Mach skimmers from Precision Marine we saw at Reef A Palooza were prototypes and there will be at least two models. The Mach 1 and Mach 2 skimmers will sell in the neighborhood of $1000 each with probably a couple benjamins in difference between the Mach 1 and Mach 2. No word on when full production of Precision Marine’s Mach skimmers will begin, but for now there are more pics after the break.
