The Bubble-Magus Club

[dmorel]

DallasCowboys,
Where do you have your water level set? Looks like just inside the riser of the collection cup?

Here are is more from me:
Day three today, after a night of running very dry foam (pic below) I had to rescue a coral in the tank (freaking snails) so I figured good time to clean the collection cup and plug the skimmer in properly. I had previously run the power cord through the front of my stand to a temporary plug. I wanted it plugged into the main strip behind the tank.

pump would not restart
I tried a bunch of times. no luck. eventually I took the skimmer out of my sump (nightmare) took it apart, took the pump apart, rinsed everything, put the pump back together and it ran. So I reassembled the entire skimmer after a quick clean and I'm back in business. But I was not happy to have to do that on the first ever restart...

Here's the pic of dry foam skimming over night. This is less than 36 hours using the skimmer. I note above in one of my posts I said nearly 36 hours with one pic, but that should have been nearly 48 hours. The skimmer went into action at 2:15 PST on Wednesday the 13th.

 

[DallasCowboys]

Dmorel,

Mine is seating at 10" of water. I had unplugged my pump a couple of times and each time it restarted without issues. Have you tried blow into the air tube? That would help the pump to startup..

 

[dmorel]

Thanks, I meant how high is the water level inside the skimmer.
Unfortunately, it's very hard for me to reach the air intake tube unless I turn the skimmer around, which I guess I will do if I have continued problems with start up.

It's been about 5 hours since restart, and foam production has not yet restarted...
Will keep monitoring, hopefully it will kick back in soon. I hate the break in period...

 

[dmopar74]

bm150 bm155

bm150 bm155

whats the difference between the bm150 and the bm155? to me it seems the only difference is the pump on the 155 is mounted externally, and the bubble plate has more holes in it.

would these perform the same? it seems with the externally mounted pump it would be easier to service, and more holes in the bubble plate would be better?

 

[rookieboy]

Hi All,

After reading the positive results with the bm100 I decided to give it a try as well. Got my unit 2 days ago but im having some noise issues with the pump :-( It currently sitting in 8 inches of water in the sump and for the first day it was very silent, but day two it was making a rattling noise. I checked my pump and it was fine, nothing scraping or broken. When i restrict the air to the pump stops making noise but there are almost no bubbles. Argggggggggg. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Lubu]

[violation]

 

[rookieboy]

Hi Lubu,

I bought my bm100 from a ebay store, not sure how good their customer service is, but I will give them a shout. Thanks
What do you guys think of the pumps on these units? Anyone know of a good replacment pump I can try?

Regards,

 

[Runfrumu]

Im tagging along on this one, if these things are still going strong in a month or so I may purchase one to try out.

 

[Paulairduck]

[/IMG]

I think Deltec might have to lower their prices:smokin:

 

[DallasCowboys]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13181638#post13181638 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paulairduck

[/IMG]

I think Deltec might have to lower their prices:smokin:

Deltec who?

Rookieboy, Ebay sells the 220V versions, did you make sure you'll get the 115V before purchasing?

 

[thabet_2]

I had the chance to try the ebay store customer service, it is outstanding, email Eric and he will make sure your issues are solved, I had the noise issue, Eric said it could be 2 things, the ceramic ring on the impeller or the venturi, in a few days I had the impeller, rings and a new venturi in my mail.
From my experince, you need to set the BM100 in 10 inches of water for best performance, 8 will get the air/water ratio on the high air rate and will cause the pump tp cavitate, try it with higher water and see if it works better
Good luck
Thabet

 

[rookieboy]

Hi All,

Yes, Im sure I got the 115v atman pump. Hey Thabet, maybe we got it from the same ebay store Thanks for the great suggestions. Im going to give them a try this week.
Regards,

 

[mikenam]

How are their calcium reactors?

 

[rbonick]

re bubble magus

re bubble magus

Based upon this thread, I ordered a BM150. Came in yesterday. Good build quality.
After pulling out the old skimmer and setting up the BM150, I also had an issue getting the pump to start up. After a couple of hours of pulling it out and cleaning everything, still no luck. What I finally figured out was if I removed the venturi valve before plugging in the pump, it fired every time. After the pump start, I just had to replace the venturi valve. Easier than pulling out the entire skimmer. Anyway, so far I would have to agree, great skimmer for an even greater price.

 

[bristle]

Which of the BM skimmers would be sufficient for a ~75 gallon + ~20 gallon sump?

 

[bristle]

I just ordered the BM100. I hope it's as good as most say it is.

 

[Bruno3047]

Copy of my post in the other Bubble Magus thread regarding the 10"- 13" recommended water height in sump for the BM100.

"Well, I'm not quite ready to give up on this skimmer yet. Now I don't have a lot of experience with needle-wheel skimmers, but there has to be a way to do something to this rig (BM100) so that it works optimally in 7" of water.

What about the riser piping? On the Octo NW150, don't you move the height of the riser pipe to adjust for the water height in your sump? Couldn't the same be done with the BM100?

Any ideas?

Anyone?"

 

[Bruno3047]

Sent Chris at NuOcean an email about my situation and he responded almost immediately that he wouldn't recommend the BM100 for anything less than 10" of water in the sump.

He suggested I look into the BM160, a recirc rig, which is twice the price.

Oh well.

 

[dmorel]

I'm running mine in 9" of sump water with much success (BM 100)...
The water height INSIDE the skimmer is easily tuned with the outlet pipe. I've run wet/dry easily with little adjustments. What maters most as far as I can tell is the stability of the water level in the sump. I evap about 1/4" before my ATO kicks on and that has a noticeable effect on the water height inside the skimmer.
The way I've compensated so far is to tune the skimmer to skim very dry when at min water level, when I top off if it's a bit wet, and evens out as I evap again.
This has worked fine so far, but I will want to figure out a way to redo my sump with the skimmer chamber not moving at all.

 

[tcgreaux]

quick update, so i mesh moded my skimmer. got some sample flatback enkamat from colbond or something. and wow talk about a heck load of bubbles the body could not handle it, bubbles were rushing out the pipe, with 2" water/bubble level below the red line. i had to turn it off after a week, micro bubble all in my display. and i ordered a spare pinwheel and i was puping it in tonight and i broke the impeller shaft not a happy camper right now.