A pair of EcoWheel tanks in the making

Howard,

Something I forgot to mention is I have observed a tiny species of lipet that seems to have no problem handling life inside of the airlift as I can easily see them thru the clear section of PVC I built into the airlift. Perhaps, over time a few of them might have gotten wedged into a hole or two in the injector ring. Who knows. Like you said, might be interesting to see a cross section of one that's been operating for a while.

Brett
 
Brett, interesting that you mention the bioball removal as I am probably going to have to remove mine. I dread this since I only have about 2-3 inches of room between the wheel and the ceiling to remove it. I remember what a pain in the *** it was to install it new and now I really dread removing it after almost 2 years of operation. Do you have any words of wisdom for my task.:)
Bill
 
Bill,

If I understand you correctly you are saying you can't pull the wheel assembly out the top while leaving the acrylic tank in place because you don't have the head room?

If so, there's really no alternative but to disconnect the whole filter from the tank and remove it from the aquarium cabinet.

However, if you do have the head room to lift the wheel assembly up and out PM me and I'll share my.... errrr... technique? It was developed on the fly and I guarantee you're going to love it ;) Everyone should try something like that at least once in their reefing career :D

Whichever method, make sure you have a trash can on standby filled about half way with tank water because after you get the wheel assembly out you can remove the side plates and just slide the actual wheel down into the trash can. That will keep the algae wet and viable until you are ready to reassemble everything. Otherwise the algae will dry out and you will lose all your filtration when you get it back together.
 
Bill,
Are you having nitrate issues? Otherwise, what's the indication for removing the bioballs? I'm looking at starting my eco-wheel in a month and if I don't need the bioballs, would be good to know up front.

Matt
 
Matt, if I can chime in... Now would defintely be the time to think about making that decision.

I was seeing slightly elevated nitrates everytime I tested. Morgan Lidster out at Inland observed the same in his 2 tanks. He said he yanked the balls out of one of them so I figured I'd give it a try. And since I have done so I have seen no nitrates the last 3 times I tested.

So, IMO it's a trade off, elevated Nitrates, or a bunch to tiny bubbles. Not horribly bad bubbles, but they're there. My animals don't seem to mind except for when I do something that causes a few of my acros to slime and then some of the stuff sloughing off picks up a few of the micro bubbles and I get these little stringers of slime stretching upwards until they break free. A bit unsightly for a brief period perhaps, but little or no detriment from what I can tell.

Besides, I humor myself by pretending the bubbles are coming from the waves crashing on the reef crest :D

Brett
 
Brett,

I've finally plumbed my tank, one drip that needs fixing on the calcium reactor fitting.

I'm curious about the optimal water level. After filling everything up and starting the eco-wheel, the water level increases with each surge in the return box to a point that water runs over the top of the acrylic box rather than just through the gate. Does your's do the same?

Matt
 
Make sure the adjustable piece on the inflow box is at it'd highest point.

The water should be flowing over the top of the adjustable piece.

Keep in mind a higher water level in the tank means a higher water level in the eco-wheel tank. This can increase the speed the of the wheel, you want it optimally 2 to 4 rpm.

Also keep the grating on the outflow box, as any build up of algae will effectively increase the level in the tank
 
caevan,

My outflow box is simply a acyrlic panel set at a angle from back to side, effectively creating a triangle shaped outflow box. There are about 1 inch long 1/4" grooves cut towards the top in a row of 20 or so slits. No adjustments can be made on that end. I've got the gate on the inflow box as high up as it will go.

Do you suggest having covers over the inflow/outflow boxes to prevent light penetration?

Matt
 
I've played around with that slider on numerous occasions and from what I can tell it really only affects the flow within the tank. But I could be wrong.

I've noticed that if I adjust it so the water flows over the slider I get a lot of bubbles being pushed downwards directly in front of the influent boxes. This nets me good flow in the back, but lesser flow in the front.

However, if I adjust the sliders so water not only comes in under them, but rolls upwards like the curl of a breaking wave on the beach, I get less bubbles and a nice laminar flow that meets front and center before breaking up and traveling across the lower front portion of the tank. Better flow in the front, less in the back.

But keep in mind I have an angled influent box in each rear corner and my outflow is rear center. This gives me a bit of a figure 8 flow inside the tank.

I have some vacation time coming up and I plan to remove the EcoWheel and cut about 1/2" off the riser box . Hopefully, this will balance everything out fix my water level issues.

Matt, hurry up and get some pics going so we can see how it's all coming together.

Brett
 
Brett, do you have a lot of heat from your airpump? I've got my 3 MH ballasts under the tank in the stand and they produce a bunch of heat. I've got a 5" fan blowing into the ballast enclosure, and some 6" holes in the back of the stand, but it is really pretty warm. I started off with the ballasts outside and they were too noisy. I might try linking a air vent hose to the ballast box and vent that air out through my rear bathroom air vent I installed for the hood. the hose directly off my air pump is hot and the air blowing out the eco-wheel is pretty warm. I can't hold my hand on the air pump b/c it's too hot.

Does your's act the same regarding temp of the hose and the air coming out of the ecowheel? Maybe it's just b/c it's sucking in the warm air from the ballast.

I'll try posting some pics with the water in tonight. I bought new fittings to replace my one leaking area, will try to fix that tonight after the kids are asleep.

Matt
 
Matt, that's pretty much the same for me. My air pump is so hot I can only touch it for a few seconds and the outlet hose is incredibly warm. Warm enough that when my cat decided to start sleeping in the cabinet I had to place a towel over the hose because she wound up with a bare spot where she touched the hose. However, with the door open she thinks it's just the cat's meow in there and spends about a 3rd of her day fast asleep with her head atop one of the ABS pipes that feeds the airlift.

However, my ballasts are located in seperate cabinets so my heat is distributed a little more evenly.

All things considered, it doesn't appear to be an issue for me as I consistantly run about 2 degrees over ambient room temps which means tank temps have been a pretty steady 78-79 degrees for the past year.

Brett
 
Brett,
I visited Mission Pet in KC this past week. They run 5 eco-wheels for their entire salt system. Pretty nice. No nuissant algea in their tanks. The only problem I noticed was they supplemented flow in their large tanks (> 500 gallons) with large powerheads. I'm still fooling around with heat issues - My tank runs 75 degrees in the morning, and heats up to 85 with the 3 metal halide bulbs running. I've got two 5 inch fans blowing into the hood (about 120 CFM), and a bathroom fan exhausting to outside (about 110 CFM). The two intake fans are above the lumenarc reflectors, I'm going to try lowering the fans to see if this helps. I could tolerate maybe 81 degrees, but 85 is not acceptable.

Matt
 
Brett, do you have a lot of heat from your airpump? I've got my 3 MH ballasts under the tank in the stand and they produce a bunch of heat. I've got a 5" fan blowing into the ballast enclosure, and some 6" holes in the back of the stand, but it is really pretty warm. I started off with the ballasts outside and they were too noisy. I might try linking a air vent hose to the ballast box and vent that air out through my rear bathroom air vent I installed for the hood. the hose directly off my air pump is hot and the air blowing out the eco-wheel is pretty warm. I can't hold my hand on the air pump b/c it's too hot.
Click to expand...

In my setup the air entering the hose that feed the injector is warm to touch, by the time the air has travelled through the length of hose (4m) it would be back at room tempreture at the point it injects into the riser pipe. In my setup I doubt it would have any effect on the tank temperature.

Most of my heat is caused by the lighting ( though this is ony a problem if the room temperature goes above 20C), my hood is open at the top so I have two ducted exhaust fans that suck the heat and vent it outside the house.
 
Hold that thought... I've got a few comments and a whole lot of typing to do.

I just recovered from a air pump failure, and 3 very long days of repairs, cleaning, and otherwise grueling tank maintenance.

Give me a day or two to type everything up.

Brett
 
I would be interested to know what happened. I had a similar experience last year, though my problems started after I replaced the parts that wear out ( the diaphragms), this apparantly should be done every 2 years. After going through 2 sets of diaphragms, they finally sent someone out to look at it, at which point I was told the accutator was out of balance and worn on one side. In the end it was cheaper to replace the pump completely. At one time I tried to find an equivalent pump, that would be longer wearing, but the ones I found did not have the same ouput specifications required.
 
After writing the above post I was reminded of something, which I confirmed last night (Australian EST) when I got home.
My first air pump I had ran quite hot roughly similar to the temperature described by other in ths post. I could not put my hand on it for too long without discomfort.
When I initially ran my replacement pump ( same brand and model) I noticed it was running at a much lower temperature, even last night after a year of running the pump is just luke warm to touch.
I do not really no why there is a such a differance in temperature between 2 supposedly identical pumps, I can only assume the first one alway had a problem to start with,
 
I didn't feel the pumps at the Mission pet mart, but the employee there said they were like mine, i.e., don't hold your hand on them for > 2-3 seconds. Looks like that is the norm. At any rate, I don't think my heat issues have anything to do with the air pump as the tank temp dropped to 75 degrees when there was no halides x 4 days. I'm thinking I may cut holes in the lumenarcs and attach a vent hose, then suck out the warm air with my vent.

Matt
 
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