Modding an AquaC EV150

[SLO180]

Anyone ever mod an Aqua C EV150?.. this is their older skimmer version, which didnt have the JG fitting yet and also has the air gap between the foam tower and the main box..

I got an EV400 that foams like no other, doesnt have salt creep cloggin air intakes and seems to produce foam much more consistently... aka i dont have to tweak/maintain as much as i do the EV150. I always seem to be tweaking the 150 to get it to foam correctly.

I understand the 400 is a much, much larger and different skimmer, but im wondering how much of the performance is due to better design (adjustable JG air valve, sealed foam tower and extra chamber tube where the water is sprayed in)?
And how much of the lesser performance is because the pump on the EV150 (Rio 2500 as recommended by Aqua C) does not work as well anymore??? I think the pump is the orig pump that came w/ the skimmer.

These mods seem relatively simple to do -- silicone around the tower to seal, drill additional hole for an adjustable air intake and "glue" a peice of acrylic tube to the water spray injector.

Should i mod it or do i just buy a bigger/newer pump to get better foam production?

 

[afelder]

I would say all of the above. If you are up to modding I would do that first and see if the performance is up to what you want if it doesn't get there get the new pump. I have heard that Aqua C skimmers tend to perform better with pumps that have higher flow than recommended.

 

[ichthyojason]

I have the same questions as you about the EV-200 - except the 200 has two inputs, so i thought i may just use one of those as my air intake. Any elaboration on what you meant by glueing on a piece of acrylic tube to the injector?

 

[schrun209]

Sup weak sauce, looks like your finally getting back to your tank. Good stuff and good luck. I'm sad to say I'm going to be downsizing my tank here pretty soon, matter of fact I'm in the process of building my new stand and canopy, i'm going with a 65 gal RR AGA. It's cool though I sold all my LPS and softies and doing an SPS tank only. Once you get your 180 up LMK I'll send over some free frags, my stuff is growing like crazy.

 

[SLO180]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10474290#post10474290 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ichthyojason
I have the same questions as you about the EV-200 - except the 200 has two inputs, so i thought i may just use one of those as my air intake. Any elaboration on what you meant by glueing on a piece of acrylic tube to the injector?

check out the pic in my pics gallery. its the red part that is drawn onto the EV pic. i think its supposed to keep water from splashing back up into the "upper" chamber

 

[SLO180]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10474748#post10474748 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by schrun209
Sup weak sauce, looks like your finally getting back to your tank. Good stuff and good luck. I'm sad to say I'm going to be downsizing my tank here pretty soon, matter of fact I'm in the process of building my new stand and canopy, i'm going with a 65 gal RR AGA. It's cool though I sold all my LPS and softies and doing an SPS tank only. Once you get your 180 up LMK I'll send over some free frags, my stuff is growing like crazy.

WHAT!!! how come u takin down the 120?? thats too bad. i been laggin so bad on gettin up the 180.. got the CL plumbed this week n maybe have the tank filled up next week.. im crossin my fingers nothin will leak. maybe ill just make a trip up to sac n pick up some stuff at the same time sometime next month.

 

[schrun209]

Alison and I are moving into a new apartment here soon and there is just not enough room in there for my 120. Anyhow let me know when you want to come up. Aren't you going to Vegas with all the homies next week, if you are have fun and be safe. BTW take some picture of your setup when you get a chance, I want to see how it looks.

 

[pogodzib]

I have an AquaC EV-150 that I have modded by caulking around the riser, adding an air valve, upsized the injector to a 1" injector, and use a Mag 12 pump on it. I know a couple people locally that use a Mag 12 on an EV-150 and they have great results. I didn't see any improvement using a Mag 12 over the Mag 9. Is the red acrylic piece in the pic glued onto the bottom side of the platform directly under the injector hole? If so, have you done this yet and did you notice any improvement.

 

[SLO180]

pogodzib,
the red acrylic peice is glued directly to the bottom side of the platform. i have not tried this on the 150 yet, but the ev400 has it, and it seems to do a pretty good job of keeping water from splashing back up and filling up the small chamber on top of the main chamber. on the 150, when the water level is too high, water flows up into the small chamber and eventually causes the foam production to stop since the spray injector gets buried under water. on the ev400, the water level can rise about 8 inches high in the foaming riser column without causing the spray injector to get buried under the water. another pic is in my gallery that shows this. At that height, some foam is still being produced, but definitely not as much foam as if you had the water level set correctly. it seems to give more room for error when trying to adjust the water level "to the top of the mixing chamber"

how did you add the air valve(drilled hole, added threaded jg valve, etc) ?

did you use silicone to seal up the two holes on the top of the skimmer so you only had the adjustable valve remaining?

 

[pogodzib]

I use one of the holes for injecting ozone into the skimmer so that hole is already plugged with the airline. As for the second hole, I drilled the new hole for the air valve in that corner of the skimmer so that the original hole pretty much became part of the new hole. Since the injector port is in the middle of the skimmer top, the air valve needs to be installed near the edge of the box anyway. I drilled the hole the same size at the air valve threads and then used a metal fitting with the same threads as the air valve to create the threads in the box. Once the threads were in, all I had to do was screw in the air valve and adjust as necessary.

BTW - I ended up drilling out the hole in my air valve a little larger than the original 1/4" valve was so I could add more air than the stock valve allowed.

 

[SLO180]

I like the idea of drilling out the air valve hole. the JG on the EV400 will "whistle" at a very low volume when its trying to pull more air than the 1/4" diameter allows.

 

[pogodzib]

Some people use a "muffler" on the AquaC EV's using some vinyl tubing. Here's a link

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=7255061#post7255061

 

[pogodzib]

Do you or anyone else know if the EV 120/180/240 has the acrylic tubing below the platform like your EV-400 has? The User manuals for the 120/180/240 don't show it. If they have it, I may try adding it and see what happens. Also, how long does the acrylic tubing extend below the platform?

 

[pogodzib]

Steve @ AquaC has told me that all new EV models have a 2" tube installed below the injector to minimize surface turbulence near the top of the reaction chamber where foam begins rising into the tower. I'll will install the tube (assuming I can find the right diameter of tubing)and see if it helps. I can't imagine it hurting.

Are there any other differences (besides size) between the EV-150 & EV-400 that you are aware of that I can try? Pretty soon my skimmer isn't going to look anything remotely like a stock EV-150.

 

[SLO180]

im guessing you could use any PVC or acrylic tube.. as long as you can attach them together. keep us updated on how the mod helps out..

lol.. soon you'll have an EV180 after the mods.. I may have one too soon. i think i may silicone the gap in the tower first then probably upgrade the pump.

 

[pogodzib]

I tried using some tubing that I thought was acrylic and is the same size as the hole, but it wouldn't hold. Either my remaining WeldOn is bad (doubtful) or the tubing I have is a clear PVC. I ended up using the tubing out of the Seaclone collection cup which is also supposed to be acrylic, but it didn't stick either, and used silicone to attach it to the skimmer platform. Hopefully the silicone is strong enough to hold the tubing with all the flow. I'll find out tonight.

 

[pogodzib]

I hooked the skimmer back up last night and all I could say was WOW ... then 5 minutes later - woah, slow down. There must be something that is either in silicon or weldon that is causing the skimmer to go crazy. I have throttled the pump way back, closed the air valve most of the way, and opened the gate valve all the way trying to minimize the skimmate instead of spewing a gallon of skimmate out every few minutes. I guess now I just need to wait for things to settle down to give my final opinions, but my initial observations really makes the tube look very promising. The water surface in the riser tube wasn't nearly as turbulent, I am able to control the bubble size very easy using the gate and air valves, and I've never seen the skimmer go so crazy.

 

[SLO180]

hows the skimmer working after the breaking in?

im in the process of gettin a mag 9 to try first. if that doesnt work, then ill try silicone on the riser and drillin an air intake.

 

[pogodzib]

I'm still trying to get the skimmate slowed down to get it to a less watery consistency. I'm guessing that there still must be something in the water and that the skimmer will slow down within a couple days, kind of like what can happen if you dump a bunch of Stress Coat into the water. Either that, or the skimmer is just performing that much better that it is trying to catch up for years of underskimming. I look off the Mag 12 that I've been using and put my Mag 9 back on. The bubbles in the riser tower are minute and it wants to push out too watery of skimmate still. Out of everything I've done so far, I think adding the 2" tube under the platform has helped the most by far, but you need to be able to throttle back the air or you'll be pumping pure H2O into the cup so adding the air valve will be a must as well.

BTW - Thanks for mentioning the tube under the platform.

 

[SLO180]

no prob bout the tube. do u have a pic or two showing the mod u made to the top of the skimmer (area around the riser, air valve hole, and 1 inch spray injector)? i dont know if i got the right tools to drill the 1/4" air valve. thx

hope ur EV is still skimmin like it was this morn