ETSS Skimmer Club!

[suthrnmn]

......hope to have it set up by the end of the weekend. Have to pulll the sump, drill and Im gonna add some additional baffles to prevent micro bubbles. I ll keep you posted and hopefully have some pics of the set up.

[suthrnmn]

......the unit came in with some problems and had to ship it back.
Gary said he would turn around a new one the same day. So it looks like it will be the 4th.

[suthrnmn]

Gary at AETech was good on his word and the unit is now complete! Pics to follow when it is plumbed.

[ostrow]

Where do you guys get the bioballs from when you replace them? Does it matter?

When I got my skimmer I ordered 1.5" bioballs from an online store. The ones I got are blue. When I checked in the tower, they were all pressed together, and they really stick to each other easily.

When I have searched online even the ones ETSS sells seem to lack any mechanism to prevent them from inter-locking. At least, judging by photos. Gary no longer replies to email (I've tried 3 times over the last couple of weeks).

I feel like the ones for the tower should have some sort of protective ring around the edge of the ball to prevent them from sticking together, but I can't find anything out there that fits this image.

So, just wondering what most people do, where they get them from and how you prevent them from just jamming together.

[rigleautomotive]

i always get the ones that gary sells .they just moved there operation into a new facility and i know he was extremely busy but if you give him a call on the phone i am sure you will get him.

[suthrnmn]

......I read "somewhere" in this thread about a member who interconnected them with mono-filament. As I recall they would then pull on the line to free up the bio balls and help with flow etc.

[llebcire]

Originally posted by llebcire
Think I'm making some progress, and it seems to be related to the bioballs settling in/packing too tightly and limiting foam production.

Pictures are after one week of production...after some aquascaping I had a powerhead fall in the middle of the night and create quite a sandstorm - last Tuesday I cleaned all the powerhead, pumps and the skimmer.

The bioballs are connected with fishing line so I can easily remove them, there's a rubber gasket on the end of the line for weight and a handle, and I've found that if I keep the line taught (wrapped around drain in collection cup) I get great foam production. It's been one week and I still can't open the valve completely from the pump which tells me I'm on the right track. Before, I would need to limit the flow initially, and apparently the bioballs would get packed within a couple of days and I would need to keep adjust for output.











-Eric

That was me.

I can get some pics of the bioballs tonight as I am going to pull them and take a look...still have foam in the riser, but production has slowed down. Guess it's possible to not have much to skim with a limited bioload and a skimmer that's too large for what I'm asking it to do.

[rigleautomotive]

they do skim the tank to a point where you will get very little skimmate after using one for a while.IME you need to feed alot heavier if your at that point to get optimal growth and color

[jjk_reef00]

I have had my etss 1500 for about 2 months with an iwalki 100 pump and it worked great.
Just lately the water level in the riser rises after about 2 minutes and even gets into the neck.
The bubbles go away and there are only bubble 2-4" off of the top of the water.
For the first 1-2 minutes it works fine, but it seems to lose air in the riser.
I think this has something to do with the bio balls so I'm going to clean them this weekend. Any ideas on my problem?

[rigleautomotive]

the drain from the collection cup may be blocked or possibly the air intake on the injector has salt creep in it restricting air flow

[jjk_reef00]

The drain is not clogged and I unscrewed the air injector (no salt creep). I think it is the bio balls compacted together.
I'm going to tear the skimmer down, clean the bio balls and try again.
Is there any full proof way of keeping the bio balls in place nylon washers, etc..

[jjk_reef00]

Yep, sure enough the bio balls were clogged up.
I got some larger bio-balls out of the garage and WOW what a difference. The air intake is hissing away where before I could barely hear it. I don't even have any water in the riser any more, just white bubbles. I'll post pics of what I did later this week.
The size of the bio balls are just smaller than the tube in the mixing tower.

I'm not experienced with large skimmer but I think people who don't like the ETSS skimmers are using bio balls that are too small.

Is it possible to have to much foam?
I seriously think I might have to dial back my Iwalki 100 on this ETS 1500.
Any recommendation of how to tell when the pump needs to be dialed back. All I have done so far is adjust the foam adjusting valvue.

[cnaegler]

I run an etss 1000 with a panworld 200( same as iwaki 70) and i adjust my foam level with the gate valve. The only time i would fool with gating the pump back is if you have overflowing with the gate valve all the way open. JMO. I don't think TOO much foam is a problem. Again, JMO.

[jjk_reef00]

Here is a pic of the new bio-balls I'm using.
I got them when I bought a used 55 gallon Clear For Life aquarium that had the overflow with the built in bio ball chamber (similar to a bio-cube). I paid $75 for the tank, and after using these bio-balls it was worth the $75 just to get these bio-balls.

[IMG] http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/...ball_small.JPG [/IMG]


Here is a comparison of the old bio-ball with the new ones I'm trying. The new ones are big enough so they don't sit next to each other as much as the other ones. I think the larger ball prevents them from packing down as much.
It is hard to tell from the pic, but the new bio-ball is noticeably larger than the old ones.



The best part of these bio-balls is that they connect to each other. I can connect about 2 ft worth of these bio-balls before the connection weakens. I placed a very long connection of bio-balls (I call it my bio-stick) into the mixing tower and then just placed individual balls on top of the bio-stick. I was thinking that someone could possibly supper glue some bio-balls together to hold them in place, similar to how these connect.



The skimmer is a completely different beast with the new bio-balls. The old ones compacted after a few days and that greatly reduced the amount of foam in the simmer. The new balls show very little if not no sign of compacting. And even if they did compact a little, I still have no water in my riser (only foam ).

[Wolfgang]

Those are Lee's "Bio Pin Balls" Large. You can Google a Source.
HTH!
-Wolfgang

[C-21 USAF]

Just read this whole thread and didn't notice much traffic on the Evolution series.

I'm really looking at the 750 evo for my 150 mixed reef with plenty of fish and a 40 gallon sump.

Any thoughts? Is this enough skimmer?

Seems like most people own the XR's, SB or the RDD.

Thanks...

[rigleautomotive]

I would like to see at least a 600 pro on that tank and even one step larger if possible.The evolution skimmers are not quite as aggressive as the 600 or 800 skimmers.the 750 will work but the others will be optimal imo

[C-21 USAF]

I'm mainly interested in the Evolution because of it being plankton friendly.

Is this a real benefit?

[C-21 USAF]

Wow, if those balls have a diameter of 1 5/8" then I have 15 gallons of 'em.

Please let me know....Thanks!

Originally posted by jjk_reef00
Here is a pic of the new bio-balls I'm using.
I got them when I bought a used 55 gallon Clear For Life aquarium that had the overflow with the built in bio ball chamber (similar to a bio-cube). I paid $75 for the tank, and after using these bio-balls it was worth the $75 just to get these bio-balls.

[IMG] http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/...ball_small.JPG [/IMG]


Here is a comparison of the old bio-ball with the new ones I'm trying. The new ones are big enough so they don't sit next to each other as much as the other ones. I think the larger ball prevents them from packing down as much.
It is hard to tell from the pic, but the new bio-ball is noticeably larger than the old ones.



The best part of these bio-balls is that they connect to each other. I can connect about 2 ft worth of these bio-balls before the connection weakens. I placed a very long connection of bio-balls (I call it my bio-stick) into the mixing tower and then just placed individual balls on top of the bio-stick. I was thinking that someone could possibly supper glue some bio-balls together to hold them in place, similar to how these connect.



The skimmer is a completely different beast with the new bio-balls. The old ones compacted after a few days and that greatly reduced the amount of foam in the simmer. The new balls show very little if not no sign of compacting. And even if they did compact a little, I still have no water in my riser (only foam ).

[jjk_reef00]

Yes 1 5/8" is what mine are.
I had another problem with the skimmer. After about 4 days it went back to the old performance with water in the riser. I tore apart the skimmer again, pured out the bio balls. I took a broom stick and put it in the mixing tower and sure enough about 6-8 of the old balls fell out along with 1 or 2 of the new balls. I think the old balls were clogging it and restricting water flow.

Either way I was fed up and didn't want to have to tear the skimmer down for a long time.
So I connected the balls together just as in the figure but this time I supper glued them together. Now I have about a 4' long bio-stick.

So far it is working great again but I want to see how it works in about a week or 2.

I've read through this thread and haven't seen anyone else have so many problems with bio balls, maybe because I'm using the old style bio-balls?
I post how my performance is in 1-2 weeks.

[llebcire]

I think I need to get some different bioballs...seems like I can skim like crazy for a week or so, then it sorta dies off...I am having an algae problem so I don't think my water is so clean that there's nothing left to skim

I don't have a clear tower, but I don't think I'm getting this type of foam:



Sump Buddy 60 driven with a Rio 2500+ from this thread
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...readid=1678510

-Eric

[llebcire]

So I'm taking Gary's (and other's on in this thread) advice and am actively looking for a Mag 7 to run my Reef Devil Deluxe with. I have a few 9.5's available but I believe they're too much flow for this skimmer.

I'm not getting anywhere near the constant production that I used to with this skimmer...and like I mentioned it skims well for a week or so then sorta poops out - will continue to foam without any real production other than mud on the walls.

I'm not wholly convinced it's my Rio 2500+ as the output is very similar to the Mag 7, but I did find a chart showing the Mag has a greater PSI than the Rio (5.7 vs. 4.1) and these skimmers do need a pressure rated pump.

I have been thinking the problem is with the bio balls, like others here, and when I contacted Gary he wanted $3.95 for 12 mini bio balls and $9.95 shipping (?!?!)...I would think 12 mini's would fit in a bubble pack for a dollar or so.

Regarding the old production, in my other set up I never adjusted the skimmer and it would routinely pull a quart or so of skimmate weekly. The main difference was that the bio balls were in the tower without any fishing line connecting them together. As the skimmer was in a Rubbermaid stock tank sump, it was easy to get to if need be...in my new set up it's hard plumbed under the stand so there wouldn't be an easy way to get the bio balls out if I needed to.

I've included a pic below of the initial set up, since then I've used dfferent bio balls and connected them loosely directly through the center...in the pic below you can see that I tied to the edge. I'm thinking the bil balls aren't allowed to sit or move freely in the tower.

Any ideas on how I should connect them together?

-Eric

[jjk_reef00]

Well mine has been up and running for a while now and I'm not losing any performance because of the bio balls.
I would try to get some Lee's "Bio Pin Balls" Large. Supper glue them together like I did.

[hottuna]

for anyone looking: I have a sump buddy 40 listed in the selling forum ...brand new never seen water..

[RichK]

I usually remove my tower every 2 or 3 weeks to clean and un-compact the bio balls. After I do this, it makes a HUGE difference in foam production. It takes me about 15 minutes to do. So, IMO, wuth the bio balls compacted, skimmer foam production falls off sharply over time.