The BOT Skimmer series by Planctonite is quite a departure from the cone skimmer craze which is still in full swing in the reef aquarium hobby. Instead of forgoing turbulence, the BOT skimmers actually have a Dynamo built-in that encourages full rotation of the water volume. The Dynamo is like a six-bladed impeller that is driven by the force of the incoming water and it encourages the water volume to spin. Planctonite claims that this near complete rotation of the skimmer body volume increases contact time by 300% and we can only take their word for it.
The flow of water through the Planctonite BOT skimmer starts off innocuous enough. Water is pumped in needle-wheel style via an Aquabee 5000 dispergator pump and directed across the blades of the Dynamo. As the water body spins above a certian velocity, a vortex is formed which recirculates air and water through the skimmer body. And then somehow the vortex pulls water through an inverter to separate air bubbles from the water and beyond that we’re just kind of lost on the route that water takes through the rest of the BOT skimmer. More pics and information when you keep reading.
The BOT skimmer will come in three sizes: a BOT 200, a BOT 250 and a BOT 300 which will cost 638€ ($842), 742€ ($980)and 918€ ($1212)respectively. The BOT 200 and BOT 300 will use a single Aquabee 5000 while the BOT 300 uses two of them. The BOT skimmers are actually equipped with the Sweeper V1 cleaner and also compatible with the Sweeper 2.0 neck cleaner. There’s no telling how much the BOT skimmer will cost if and when it actually makes it to Americas, but we’ll be keeping an eye on their North American distributor Aquarium Specialty’s website for a preorder page to go up.
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