Not quite sure what all the fuss was all about on the stickers and labels from the other reviewer. Sure there are informative and descriptive stickers all over this skimmer but they came right off with a little patience. I didn't rip them off. I took my time and they came off cleanly and in one piece. There was a very little adhesive residue left over but a paper towel with some lighter fluid made quick work of it.
I teamed this skimmer up with a Tetra 1900 gph submersable pump. I have the skimmer set on top of an upside down bucket that I cut big holes in to make it a "cave" for the fish to swim through and hide in.
The only "problem" I've had in the month it's been installed is that a few of my very young shubunkins have been sucked into it. These little guys were born last October, just before I shut the pump down for the winter. I knew they wouldn't survive the winter cold so I put them in an aquarium over the winter months. We've had a very warm spring and I started the pond pump up mid March when I noticed my water was over 65 degrees. I decided to take the 12 new fish and put them in the pond and give them more room (than the aquarium). I check each morning to see if there are any of the little buggers in there and normally there are one or two. I was trying to figure a way to lessen the chance of them getting sucked in. I thought of splitting the intake for my pump to include maybe a separate underwater prefilter to take some of the suction away but then yesterday morning I noticed when I push down on the weir (from the inside when the top is tipped up) that the water "flow" into the skimmer seemed to be less intense. Actually slowing the turbulance down enough that it seemed a little fish could work his own way out. I ended up putting a small rock onto the wier to weigh it down. That seems to be doing the trick. Time will tell...I will still check each morning and write an update.
Anyway, for the money, this skimmer does a great job keeping the water surface much cleaner than it was without the skimmer. I used to have to overflow the pond when I would see any kind of clutter or debris on the surface I didn't like. This has been a great upgrade to my pond. It whisks away leaves, flower pedals, and any uneaten food to keep it from decaying and clouding the water. I've actually been opening it up later in the day and scooping out any food still floating in there and putting it back for a snack for my little buddies. If you want a skimmer to help keep your pond cleaner and clearer, don't hesitate buying this one. It's a real bargain. I hope I've helped balance the bad reviews on this thing. The stickers just need a little patience and this thing is plenty sturdy to do the job it's intended to do and do it well.
I've wanted a skimmer for a long time and this one is just 1/2 the price of the next cheapest one so I decided to give it a go.
The worst thing about Tetra products is that their website has minimal documentation compared to other brands such as Laguna which even has pdf's of the instruction manuals. So to find out if a Tetra product works for you, you'll have to search forums or consumer reviews for information.
The kit comes with 3 ft of 1.25" hose, coarse filter, internal filter basket and a 1.25" hose fitting that you can fit on either side of it. There are 3 large stickers on the skimmer, but you can peel them off pretty easily. You'll also need to buy a couple of hose clamps to make sure the hose attaches securely to the tube fittings, they could have been included in the kit, but it's not a big deal to buy them.
The outlet for this skimmer is 1.25" so you should find a pump that has a 1.25" inlet. I've attached it to a 2 filter arrangement that only accepts a 1" tube so I had to get a step down attachment that goes from 1.25" to 1" at the hardware store.
Placement: Placement is very important for this to work. You must place this skimmer so that it is horizontally level and the water level is about an inch from the top of the skimmer inlet (the inlet is 3 inches high so you've got a little room to play with). The skimmer floats and capsizes if there is not enough water in it (level of water too low) and sinks (if the water level is too high), so you have to secure it on some kind of level platform near the edge (to empty the basket and clean the filter). If your pond is very deep all around or if you don't have some kind of platform near the edge then you're out of luck, this skimmer will not float at the right height or stay put by itself. There are 4 small niches on the edges where you are supposed to put stones in to prevent the skimmer from floating off but the spaces are just too small to put enough stones in to do that.
I don't know how Tetra expects you to hold the skimmer in place as there are no flanges or attachment points built in. I have it temporarily secured right now with two rocks holding it down, but I plan to either drill a couple of holes in it to tie it down or wedge it securely in a rock setting. But once it is in place it works great. I can see the surface debris and detritus floating into the skimmer right away. For this price, this skimmer is a great deal, in fact I couldn't find anything close to this price. You just need to work at it a little bit to fit it into you pond. Highly recommended for those who don't mind doing a little extra work.
Update: I had to go to the hardware store to find step up and down adapters because the filters and the pump had different size hoses but I've found that Laguna sells hose fittings and adapters that make connections between different sized hoses a snap. Just follow the links below:
Laguna Y-Connector Supplied with 3 Click-Fit Connectors, 1-1/4-Inch
Laguna Multi Hose Adapter, 3/4 to 1-1/2-Inch
Another update:
This skimmer rocks. It not only sucks a lot of floating debris in but it also helps clean the pond water by catching the tiny algae which makes your water green. I have a couple of fish swim in (one idiot went in twice and you would have thought that he learned his lesson the first time) so I've elected to leave the top off so you can see inside it.
It has intakes on both left and right and comes with a plug so you can seal up the side you don't use. Theoretically, you can line up 2 of these skimmers in series so you can clean up the pond more efficiently, but I used the other intake to plug in another DIY filter to increase the filter surface area. Works great. I really love this skimmer and highly highly recommend it.
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I was excited when I saw this skimmer. I have a small pond and it was the size I was looking for, and at a great price. It is a new product, however, and you can definitely tell that they have not fixed all the kinks. First, there are stickers all over it -on the lid, on the weir and at the base. There are even a few "Made in China" stickers. Since this product is supposed to be placed in the water, I figured it was a good idea to remove the stickers. Wrong! Only the one on the weir came off easily. The others were hard to remove and left a lot of glue. These are big stickers -the one on the lid covers almost the entire lid and the one at the base covers half the base. The only way to remove the glue is to use turpentine or something similar. However, the lid is made of cheap plastic that began to melt with the turpentine, causing my rag to turn black. Now I'm kinda nervous all of this is going to poison my pond water. Then, after I put it together, I realized two problems: 1. they had to bend the basket to make it fit and then, you have to place the basket just right and 2. the hose that connects the skimmer to the pump DOES NOT fit the fittings that are included in the package. I purchased the Tetra Pond pump recommended for the skimmer and the fitting screws onto it without a problem, but the hose is clearly too large for the barb on the fitting. It falls right off. Tetra Pond apparently figured out this at some point but their solution was to suggest that the hose be clamped with clamps that are "optional" and "not included". That's like saying the engine mounts in a car are "optional" and "not included". Basically, there is no way the skimmer and pump will work without the clamps or a hose that fits over the barb on the fitting so I'm going to purchase those now. I also noted that the skimmer does not come with straps like other skimmers so you have to lay something under it to get it to the right height. Basically, if you are handy and have free time, and want to save some money, this might work for you. But if you want it to work with the minimum of muss and fuss out of the box, try another small skimmer like Cal Pumps Small Pond Skimmer or PondMaster's Mini Pond Skimmer.
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I have a 3 tier swan fountain in a 500 gallon pool. Have been fighting bug and debris contamination for a year. Pump pre filters help, but this baby solves the problem before it becomes a problem. Added this skimmer and the water now remains crystal clear. I love this skimmer. Had my wife and kids remove the stickers, so no problem there for me. Add rocks in the bottom to keep it from floating away.
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This skimmer was very easy to install and I had it done very quickly. I like that I didn't have to cut the liner to install it and it was easy to adjust the height of the unit with flat rocks. The gravel in the corners keeps it from floating away. It really was covered with stickers but they came right off.
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I own three of these pumps. They work great, just a workhorse at getting the job done...reliably. Set up is easy. I am using them for my HOB skimmer as well as for automatic topoff support. A classic pump in the aquarium trade, for good reason.
