EV-180 issues

[rudeanduncouth]

I have an EV-180 that I have been having issues with. It is in-sump with a mag-12 and a ball-valve. I have had it in there for almost 2 months now. Not sure if anybody has a lot of experience with these or not but I can barely get to skim.

Basically, I have talked to them on the phone and followed the adjustments and set it to where they say but I can get a wet skim to save my life. It is extremely dry. The water flowing into the sump creates more foam than I can get out of this skimmer. I would like it to be wet since I always dinking in the tank and don't want to have to wait forever for it to start skimming again. Seems like it can take a day at times.

 

[big t]

Well does it have a gate valve on the output? If it dosn't then I would think that adding one would help make it more adjustable. You would simply close the valve a little to raise the water level and make the skimmate more wetta.

 

[Krish]

I have an EV-180 that I have been having issues with. It is in-sump with a mag-12 and a ball-valve. I have had it in there for almost 2 months now. Not sure if anybody has a lot of experience with these or not but I can barely get to skim.

Basically, I have talked to them on the phone and followed the adjustments and set it to where they say but I can get a wet skim to save my life. It is extremely dry. The water flowing into the sump creates more foam than I can get out of this skimmer. I would like it to be wet since I always dinking in the tank and don't want to have to wait forever for it to start skimming again. Seems like it can take a day at times.

It shouldn't take a day to resume skimming unless you soak yourself with lotion or something before putting your hand in the tank Did you see my reply on my thread? Well, to add to that if you saw it (if not go and check it) how long has it been since you cleaned out the air injector? I had some salt deposits clogged in mine about a week ago and had to un-screw it and clean it out with a toothbrush and toothpick. I checked it because the foam wouldn't rise anymore and that fixed it. Also, why do you have a ball valve on your mag? Is the pump too strong for your skimmer? I use the mag5 on my AquaC EV-120 (was reccommended) and the way I controll the skimmate is by the gate valve. The more you close that gate valve, the more the water will rise and the more wet skimmate you will get. But be careful! I use to have mine set too high and would end up with a full gatorade bottle of pee looking liquid everyday which use to overflow on the floor as well...From what I gathered from them (AquaC) the air injector should be wide open the pump that is reccommended should be at full force and all adjustments should come from the gate valve.

 

[Reefdaddy1]

Yeppers , Big T got it right Gate valve works everytime to get it wetta, lol I fell Like a new yorka.

 

[rudeanduncouth]

The mag-12 without a ball-valve raises the water level about an inch into the tube. If I let it sit like that it doesn't skim at all. I generally just use the ball-valve to adjust the flow since I have to reduce the flow. The air-injector is wide open and I cleaned it about two weeks ago. It is possible that it is clogged but it fine the last time.

Right now I have the water level sitting right at the bottom of the foam tube. It takes almost a day to fill the foam tube and fall into the collection cup. If I raise the water level higher it stops skimming.

 

[Krish]

The mag-12 without a ball-valve raises the water level about an inch into the tube. If I let it sit like that it doesn't skim at all. I generally just use the ball-valve to adjust the flow since I have to reduce the flow. The air-injector is wide open and I cleaned it about two weeks ago. It is possible that it is clogged but it fine the last time.

Right now I have the water level sitting right at the bottom of the foam tube. It takes almost a day to fill the foam tube and fall into the collection cup. If I raise the water level higher it stops skimming.

Hmmm...Has it always been that way? I know if there is nothing there to skim it won't skim. Also, I wonder if you have a bad injector? It is possible. I had a pro150 wet/dry that came with a skimmer and had to have proaquatics send me a new venturi because the one they sent, wouldn't produce foam. Even with the new one, I had to remove the little air valve so it could inject more air...In any event, more water flow with these AquaC skimmers don't seem like the way to go (rather closing the gate to raise the water level). I think you may be having a problem with maybe the microbubbles being produced which can be related to an injector being bad possibly, or the wrong mix of water flow and bubble size in the chamber. Just a thought...Not sure if it made sense, but I'm trying

 

[Haole]

Hey Daniel,
Just out of curiosity, where is your skimmer’s pump located at?
Is it pulling in raw unfiltered water from your overflow?

 

[rudeanduncouth]

The pump is located so it is getting new water. It is similar to Krish's setup except that is sits in the sump.

It has always been this way. I hadn't considered a problem with the injector. The water seems turbulent enough and seems like it gets enough bubbles but maybe I am wrong. When I talked to Aqua-C they didn't seem concerned about the MAG-12 since there was a ball-valve. They talk about in the instruction that if you use a larger pump you can increase the skimming, but if you use to big a pump you will need a ball-valve to reduce the flow.

 

[Krish]

Daniel...Here are some photos of my skimmer after me wipeing it all out the night before. The water level, I keep just above the black body of the skimmer. Basically the majority of the skimmate I remove from the skimmer comes from inside the neck and not the collection cup even though the collection cup gets dark skimmate. It seems the dryer skimmate has worked best for me. I only have 4 fish and not very big so usually it will take 3 days now, before the neck gets so thick and mucky that foam hardly makes it to the top anymore and you can't see in. When I ran it wet, the water level use to be set just below half way up the neck and what that gave me was a yellowish looking clear liquid and not much thick skimmate, but wet like you wanted it

 

[rudeanduncouth]

Really? You had the water that far up? Hmmm. Perhaps I should open my ball-valve all the way. When I have done that in the past it didn't even get frothy at the top of the water though.

 

[Krish]

Really? You had the water that far up? Hmmm. Perhaps I should open my ball-valve all the way. When I have done that in the past it didn't even get frothy at the top of the water though.

Yup! You see that container connected to the collection cup to drain off? I use to overflow that with yellow water when it was set that high everyday! I'll see if I can find a picture of where I use to have it set, but yeah, my pump is pushing full blast and I just raised the water level by closing the gate valve. I wonder what would happen if you un-screwed you injector totally(LOL) Think it would inject more air? I don't know how those things really work, but if your injector is possibly bad, that may be a way to find out, but don't try it unless it's cool to do it(LOL) Like I said I have no idea what will happen, but that thought just ran across my mind

 

[moortim]

It sounds like a clogged injector to me.

 

[Krish]

This is a link to a thread I started when I was having the opposite problem as you are...Too wet. Maybe something in here may help some

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13194


Here is the only picture I can find right now of what the wet skimmate looked like. I will have to search some more, but you can get an idea of what the bottle use to get full of everyday running wet.

 

[bc_slc]

according to AquaC, it shouldn't be that high. If you set the water level at the bottom of the plate about 1" from the top (located inside the black chamber) then it gives the aeration necessary to produce better foam. If you set the water level at the same height as the cylinder, then min skimmate will be produced.

 

[nishnabek]

The mag-12 is way to big for the EV-180. The recommended pump is a mag-7 and a lot of people use mag-9.5's. A mag-12 will create too much turbulence in the skimmer and the foam will just collapse.

IME, my EV-180 only skimmed well when I had a mixed reef that was a little dirtier. When I went all SPS and had a pretty nutrient poor tank I could never get it to skim consistently and now it sits in the garage.

 

[moortim]

The mag-12 is way to big for the EV-180. The recommended pump is a mag-7 and a lot of people use mag-9.5's. A mag-12 will create too much turbulence in the skimmer and the foam will just collapse.

Are you saying that there is something detrimental to using a ball valve to slow the flow? The reason I ask is I am setting up an EV-120 using a quiet one 3000 (780gph) with a ball valve to control the water going in. Can you see a reason this would not work?

Tim

 

[rudeanduncouth]

The mag-12 is way to big for the EV-180. The recommended pump is a mag-7 and a lot of people use mag-9.5's. A mag-12 will create too much turbulence in the skimmer and the foam will just collapse.

That is why I put the ball-valve there. It should in theory, I would think, slow the flow down enough that it should work. However, perhaps I will reduce the flow on the ball valve a bit and then use the gate valve to adjust the flow a little better.

This is a link to a thread I started when I was having the opposite problem as you are...Too wet. Maybe something in here may help some

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13194

Thanks for the link to that thread. That was helpful.

 

[Krish]

No problem Daniel...Let us know how it goes

 

[rudeanduncouth]

Well, so far not so good. I reduced the flow with the ball-valve. on the mag-12 and raised the water level with the gate valve, and it wouldn't foam at all. Left it like that all day. I had about 3" of foam in the sump though.

 

[Krish]

That's weird... Is your gate valve above water level?