Like everyone else has mentioned, the directions are horrible! But that goes for all Reef Octopus products that i've seen. this skimmer is 100% better than the old HOB skimmer I was using on my 50g reef tank. I get good dark skimmate and clean out the collection cup usually about twice a week. Once you get your collection cup set to a good level, I recommend marking the cup so you don't have to guess where you had it each time you take it off the skimer to clean. A great investment for those who don't have room in their stand for a traditional in-sump skimmer.

This unit should be a 5 star... The instructions suck!! But the operation of the unit makes up for the 10 mins of fustration i had while setting the unit up. It does work awsome its not wisper quiet but close to it. Its a must have for my tank. I thought it was running a clean tank until i set the skimmer up. WOW money well spent.

I purchased this skimmer for my 55 gal reef tank after doing a lot of reviewing on multiple different ones. I couldn't be happier with my purchase. I was a little worried about others saying the break in period could be up to 3 weeks on this skimmer. I am happy to say mine broke in in about 2 hours. Also I read about severe overflows during the break in period with there collection cup. Set the cup high, and you will have nothing to worry about. My brand new hardwood floor has not seen one drop of water from this skimmer.

As Described, pretty much hooked it up and is doing the job, no complaints so far..

Easy to setup and once broken in it works like a charm.

Out of all the products I've bought for my reef tank, this one is probably my favorite. As every one has said, the directions are terrible. There is a great video on YouTube that will walk you through how to put it together. I also struggled with the priming of the pump. I skipped that part and couldn't figure out why it wasn't producing bubbles. Make sure you completely close the tube to prime. Now after having it for a couple months, I can say it gets a lot of stuff out of my tank. its very low maintenance, and pretty quiet too. Its not silent, but its not loud either. I've been talking about how awesome this is on forms, and I would recommend this to anyone that has a 75 gallon or less tank that wants a HOB. I even called the company with a question, and they did a great job answering it for me.

so far so good!!:) had it running almost a week now on a new tank. didnt skim until probably the 4th day but i think there is just a break in period. then i added some snails and hermit crabs to help clean up the live rock i had in there. i'll wait another few weeks to add fish. terrible directions so i was so happy my husband helped with the few things that had to be put together on it. also looked online for help with that. i also think it got much quieter after a few days of running. i think that is probably normal too. I'm new to this so i dont have much to compare it to. just what i researched and read online. but i have to say i'm very happy with this skimmer. I hope it keeps working this well once my tank is established. :)

Great skimmer for the money. the directions that come with it arent very good but it goes together really easy. got it set up on the tank and it started skimming within an hour wit 0 micro bubbles.totally worth the money

Works great on my frag tank. Pulls out a lot of stuff, but if it should overflow you will have quite the mess on the floor. They need to make an overflow attachment or let it overflow to th e return. Overall it fits the job just fine.

Great skimmer! I used it on my 60 gallon mixed reef and it pulled out a large amount of skim mate practically right away. This little thing works great for a HOB.

started skimming right away on day2, the instrustions are useless on how to control the skimmer. Still waiting for it to break in since it is causing alot of mico bubble problem

as i read the instructions were terrible put it together without it was simple had to modify some of the tubing so the surface skimmer would sit right after a few hours it was pulling some nasty stuff out of my tank after a week of having it on, my tank has never looked better super dark skim getting pulled now. BRS fast shipping and the way they pack their boxes no way your stuff is going to break lol

After the initial break in period this skimmer gave me no problems. Works great for exactly what I want it to.

I just recieved this skimmer to replace an old CPR BakPak 2R+ skimmer. This skimmer runs circles around m old one. It is 100 ti,ec quieter and is running great. I have had no micro bubbles in my tank and it was skimming in the first few hours. Extremely quick break in period. Great product.

I just installed the BH-1000. First thing that happened was the pump was not working.. It would just heat up but nothing happened, so i took the pump apart and put it back together and bam! started working.

The pump is quiet which I like, and it does produce a lot of microbubbles but I just put the SQUARE black sponge on top of the return nozzle instead of under it and it basically stopped all my microbubbles.

It hasn't produced any skimmate yet, but has a decent head of foam.

Has been up and running for months and still has serious microbubble problems that have to stopped with a sponge that has turned into a nitrate farm and it doesn't even work very well.

I don't have a sump on my 55g system so the hang-on-back models were the only choice I had if I wanted a skimmer. I had read really good things about this skimmer so I decided to give it a shot.

I am glad I did because this skimmer is working very well! It has only been on my tank for about a week or so but it's already removing nasty stuff out of my tank and cleaning it is a piece of cake.

The installation instructions lack considerably, but it's easy enough to find information about it on the Web. Regardless, it is an excellent product and I would recommend this to anyone that needs a hang-on-back skimmer.

This is my second protien sckimmer. My first one, just didn't do the job and added a bunch of bubbles to my tank, in a bad way. This one was cleaning green slime off my tank the first day. It does have some bubbles coming off of it, but nothing anywhere near as bad as the previous skimmer that I had. Also I have noticed they are getting less and less. Over all it is a great skimmer.

I have this skimmer on a 55gallon reef tank a very small sump. The skimmer works flawlessly right out of the box. Cleaning the bubble chamber and outflow areas is difficult but it has needed a tear down only once in over a year of service. One warning is to watch for overflow from the collection box if adding supplements, or changing water, chemicals, or using superglue, since the salt water will end up on the carpet

I bought this to replace the Hydor Slim Skim in my 55 FOWLR that I'm changing over to a reef. The Hydor worked okay but it simply doesn't have the capacity of the Octopus. since you don't really need a sump for a 55 gallon show tank I chose the HOB route and I can honestly say this is probably about the best HOB skimmer on the market. Although a little pricey, it's not much more than the CPR skimmers and does a WAY better job. It cost less than half as much as a Deltec(overated and way overpriced,considering build quality) MC-600 is better made, and does just as good a job if not better. the normal break in for the Octopus is 2-3 weeks but mine was pulling dark, tea colored,smelly skimate in 3-4 days. In the next 2 weeks i found the "sweet spot" on the skimmer cup and marked it and now it is filling the cup with the same every 4-5 days. After 3 weeks of use there are still some micro bubbles but there are far less than in the beginning. Do not use the sponges that come with the skimmer as they will probably become mini nitrate factories over time. On a 55g glass show, the intake tube DOES NOT need to be cut and doing so will probably void your warranty. As far as noise it started out a little noisy at first but now it's fairly quiet and I attached a 2nd piece of tubing to the air silencer. Basically all I hear is a faint "sucking" sound from the intake tube,so the unit is pretty quiet although not totally silent. This is agreat skimmer for tanks under 90g and I higly recommend it.

This is the first skimmer I had bought; and unfortunately even though I have a sump on my tank; it was simply too small for any of the internal ones on the market. So I purchased this one. It certainly is a pretty good skimmer, I wouldn't classify it as something that you could run on anything above the rated specifications, but it does a decent job on my 46 gal with a 10 gal sump. It is a little loud; but nothing unbearable to have in your room if you are use to sleeping with a fan or something similar to on. I would certainly say that if space is a limitation you have, this skimmer would work well!

So far so good. Using on my 37 gal reef with no sump. Took some time to properly adjust the collection cup, but now I get lots of tea colored skimmate every few days. I like that it has the pump on the outside of the tank, so I can barely see the intake and output inside the display.

I have have my Reef Octopus Hang on the Back 1000 OCT BH1000 for over a year now. It works, never fails, and cleans up easy. For those of you with Bio- cubes or Nano cubes you know it can be a challenge to find a skimmer that will work on your system. This Octopus fits perfectly and works great!!!!

I tried an Odyssea skimmer on my 75 FOWLR tank and was very disappointed, cheap but a waste of money. Thai skimmer worked out of the box. There were micro bubbles at first but after two days running, gone. It produces lots of skimmate and is super easynto maintain. It's a great design and loaded with quality.