What makes a new skimmer junk vs others?

[BioMan]

Facebook has been popping up with so many hobbiest groups, and I joined cuz I like looking at tanks all day, and people TRASH talk so many skimmers. I know the first skimmer I ever had used 4 wooden diffusers (stones dont work) and they only lasted 2 weeks and were expensive and hard to get (only 1 store carried them). THAT was a crappy skimmer. But if a skimmer is "making coffee" whats the big difference? Is a high end skimmer really worth the money vs the $200 petco ones? (I have a POV2 from Reef Octopus and love it but they discontinued the line of them after only a year or 2.)

 

[NYreefNoob]

price doesn't always reflect quality. ive had almost 40 skimmers, few things go into a good skimmer to me, proper size for your tank, proper size pump for body and neck, my personal favorite skimmers were the atb 840, vertex in100 with atb pump, vertex alpha 200 ( was too big ) and the skimz sm202 ( was too big )

 

[Tonyscoots84]

Yea of course some are worth the money. I have the skims dc sm203 (i believe) it performs great but an ongoing issue me rich and i have been seeing is the dc pump lasts about a year. We both got lucky before our warranty ran out. The skimmer would suck everything out of the water column. If i had the money a bubble king would be the to go to skimmer for me just my opinion

 

[BioMan]

Price doesnt always = quality,,thats what I think too because this guy bought a skimmer for his 45 gal or whatever from petco and everybody had said it was a million things except useful...like he was gonna go home, plug it in and it would just play a nice little melody or something!