Project 360 - Tunze 9440 Mods
The 9440 Saga
What happens when you’re an early adopter of a new product? Well… you either get lucky and it works out as well as you’d hoped, or things don’t go exactly to plan and you make adjustments. The latter was the case with the Tunze 9440 for me. It’s been a couple of years (I think?) since I started running it and I’ve gone through quite a few setup changes with it over that time.
Project 360 - Skimmer Upgrades
I was among a few people in the US to be the first to receive one of the new Tunze Master DOC skimmers. Mine is a 9420. It took me about a year to actually unbox it, get it wet, and run it. Around that time a few other people had theirs up and running and had realized that there were some performance issues with the pump drawing less air than specified and the skimmate barely making it up and over the neck.
Tunze first released a new pump, designed and manufactured by them, the Hydrofoamer Silence pump. There are a couple of sizes available depending on which skimmer it is slated for, the 9420.040 or the 9410.040. Roger of Tunze USA was kind enough to upgrade my original pump to the new Silence pump since I had never run it. More recently Roger sent me a new needlewheel which is said to improve the air intake.
I just installed the new needlewheel today and have fired the skimmer back up. I haven’t measured anything yet so I don’t know if I’ll see an actual improvement or not, but I can’t imagine Tunze would redesign the impeller for no good reason. I snapped a few pictures in the process of replacing the impeller.
Project 360 - Protein Skimmer
The Skimmer
Choosing a protein skimmer for this system has probably been the most difficult decision to date. Knowing that this tank is going to be swarming with fish who are constantly eating and pooping, and the skimmer is the primary means for removal of these organics, I realized that I’d need a “good” skimmer. The downside to good skimmers is A) they come with a big price tag and B) they’re primary energy consumers since they run 24/7. So how do you quantify what a “good” skimmer is?