Original Equipment Manufacturer WaveReef has launched a new protein skimmer called the K1-50N. With a footprint of just 10.5×8.6cm/4.13”x3.39,” WaveReef has managed to make a wine bottle-shaped body with a diameter of just 80mm/3.15”, making it suitable for the rear chamber of some All-In-One tanks, or a space-saving skimmer in small sumps. The K1-50N is powered by a tiny 6W DC pump which its makers say draws 200lph/53 gals of air while pumping 300lph/79 gals of water. The model is rated for saltwater aquariums from 300 liters/79 gallons, though with its small physical size we envisage it being fitted to systems of half or even one-quarter of that volume.
The K1-50N is being marketed as a Hang-On-Back (HOB,) model, although it does need to sit inside water so we’d class it more of a Hang-On-Front or Side, and inside a tank, filter chamber, or sump, not on the back, high and dry. It can stand on its own two feet and comes with a clamp to ensure it’s fitted at the right water level when used in deeper chambers.
The air silencer is built into a ring around the neck of the skimmer, but that ring becomes dual-purpose as the K1-50N has no standpipe or even gate valve for water height adjustment, and instead the whole skimmer body is rotated in small increments by way of that fixed collar to send air and water either up or down the skimmer body.
Nano skimmers have been feature-poor in the past but the K1-50N has a lot of grown-up features borrowed from much larger, usually much more expensive models. It looks worthy of further investigation if shopping for a nano skimmer for a small saltwater system with a suitably sized skimmer chamber.
