Scrubbers are noob friendly.
I enjoyed my time with scrubber.
I ran a skimmer for a short time, I liked that as well.
Currently I have no skimmer and no scrubber running.
Just the natural filtration provided by 100lbs of LR, 40lbs of sand, and a foam wall. And a well a balanced and chosen CuC.
When I was running my scrubber .1 on my trite/trate readings would be a bad day.Running it solely skimmer yielded a bit higher readings(still safe, but 5-10 range).
My over all opinion is you can punish your system and get away with it provided you are following the instructions of proper scrubber maintenance. You are getting ALOT of forgiveness by installing a scrubber. They really do work.
But there are trade offs to acknowledge. Excess Water evaporation meant mildew gathering on the walls in the maintance room, which I didnt like. And I never could seem to get it to stop slurping consistently. Those seemed to be the two biggest issues.
Basically there's a bit more to consider. And I don't see any reason not to have both. I'm about 4 weeks away from seeing how my system works running both skimmer and scrubber. After this latest batch of experiments, Ill have my mind made up on how I permanently want to run this system.
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As for Santa Monica,
Its shrewd ya. But I applaud him, because of his campaign I have heard the gospel of scrubbers. I think his latest design is a pretty interesting one. I was skeptical about the shallow depth of the screen. But it also means less water evaporation since the water isn't running down a long field. That reduces one of my two main problems. I might find it something I would consider ordering.