Brand New Reef Science Beckett Skimmer

Picture here is a custom made skimmer I had designed by Reef Sciences. The skimmer is custom in that it is not off the shelf. I gave Reef Sciences a set of specifications such as height, side to drain water out off, number of beckett that can be used etc. After about of two months of working out the details and construction this is the beautiful skimmer they made.

I am very pleased with the design and the craftsmanship is fantastic. It's a work of art.

As shipped, it is a 28 inch tall skimmer, with a dual beckett sump with only a single beckett injector installed. This will allow me to add a second beckett injector assembly in the future if I feel I need it. If I was to upgrade to a larger tank I'll only need to pay for a few parts and not get an entire new skimmer.

Custom Made Reef Science Skimmer

This picture shows the existing beckett assembly and space available for future upgrades. To upgrade this skimmer, just remove the plug in the base of the unit, screw in the new mixing tower, remove the existing beckett assembly (Tee with air valve) and replace with new beckett assembly. The dual beckett assembly will look totally different and be based on dual unions with a Tee and air-valve above it. (can not thread on two tee's as pictured since they will hit each other.

The top of the injector assembly is just a slip connection. With just a few wiggles of the water injector you can remove the U shaped water injector and easily pull out the beckett injector for cleaning. This is a really nice design feature over many beckett skimmers on the market. Many of them have sealed beckett chambers which makes cleaning them very difficult.

In addition to adding another beckett, the skimmer is designed to be modular. It is very easy to increase the height of the skimmer just by adding sections. The size of the sump box will easily handle a riser column upto about 5 feet tall which would be a monster of a skimmer.

Skimmer after first 48 hours

Pictured left is the skimmer installed in my skimmer cabinet after 48 hours of running. You can see where I had to install a valve before the skimmer to cut back the pump a little which is a good sign in that this pump should be able to power a dual beckett design in the future.

In the mixing tower and the riser tube you can see that the air bubbles are so small the water looks like milk. The 45 degree exhaust ports in the base of the mixing tube create a very rapid spinning effect on the water which greatly increases the contact time air bubbles have with water.

Unlike ETS skimmers which have very low water levels, the beckett based skimmer such as this one have very high water levels. The water level here is just slightly below the brown scum ring in the mixing tower. Even that water level is a little low. I operate the skimmer with the water level just below the flange that links the riser tube to the collection cup.

Inside the collection cup you can see an excellent dry foam head and about 200ml of dark skimmate. The drain hose is connect via a John Guest fitting (nice touch) that can be rotated. It came with a nicer drain hose. I adapted the drain hose to use my existing hose and collection container.

Skimmer Cabinet

This shows the entire skimmer cabinet which hides the skimmer, auto-shutoff waste collector and skimmer pump. Something like this is a great alternative to limiting yourself to what can fit under you tank stand.

If you are interested in having Reef Sciences build you a custom skimmer or perhaps a premade skimmer contact Brian Ferguson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.