A pair of EcoWheel tanks in the making

[caevan]

take it you wheel has the screening that wraps all the way around? Mine doesn't - my algae grows directly on the PVC wheel itself.

Brett,

I noticed in the picture above you had no screen, my ecowheel has a screen wrapped around either side of the wheel leaving the centre ( about 1 third of the wheel width) open. I presume this is a design change in yours, I would be interested to know why.

Due to distance and cost of shipping, I only purchased the wheel assembly, the surge boxes and some plumbing parts, along with plans to build the eco wheel tank. Everything else was built or sourced locally. As there was no way to get a seeded screen for the wheel, I had to let the algae grow by itself. Regardless of the water level I was getting quite high rpm, so Chris Limcaco suggested covering the bare section with more screen material, this gave me a similar rotation to what you have described.

[Putawaywet]

I have no idea why the design change. Other than a little extra time scraping in and around the blades on the wheel I guess it's all same.

FWIW, Imagine even growing your own algae from scratch you're no worse for wear. It's not like Turf algaes come from some secret part of the world. The idea of getting them from Inland is just a time saving measure more than likely.

How much effort does it take for you to stop your wheel? I mean, can you hold it in place with a single finger?

Brett

[chask]

Brett wrote:

About the only think I have been doing is trying to service the wheel on a regular basis, remove as much corraline as possible to reduce excess weight and keep water levels as consistant as possible. That seems to work but it requires that I stay deligent.


I read somewhere else here on RC about corraline algae. Several posters said that keeping their Ca down to around 400-410 significantly reduced their corraline algae growth. They also commented how they could not understand those who kept their Ca levels in the upper 400s to 500+. I think that there was another factor they also mentioned that they claimed assisted in lower corraline growth but it doesn't come to mind what that was now. I can find it again if this is something you guys do not already know about.

Charles

[caevan]

FWIW, Imagine even growing your own algae from scratch you're no worse for wear. It's not like Turf algaes come from some secret part of the world. The idea of getting them from Inland is just a time saving measure more than likely.

In the past I have setup DIY algae scrubbers, and had to let them seed themselves. On an established tank this does not take long. On a new tank it can take quite a while.

How much effort does it take for you to stop your wheel? I mean, can you hold it in place with a single finger?

Not without a lot of effort.

[piercho]

Caevan,
with regards to increased efficiencies using a "ring" injector vice a single injection point:
I ran two tests using a 4', 1.5" lift with lots of 2" external plumbing and bends (like the ecowheel plumbing has). One test was with a 8-point injector made by AES. The second was with the homemade injector with the many tiny holes shown in the thread you linked. I did get a better flow rate with the homemade injector with many tiny holes. However, the plumbing was similar but not identical, so plumbing head may have played a significant role. I never tested a single point injector like the one showed in the ecowheel schematic for performance. I don't know if you would get a significant improvement, if any improvement, going with a multi-point injector in your arrangement.

Basic air lift design is that fewer, larger bubbles produce more lift if the lift pipe has vertical head. Do fewer, larger bubbles produce more flow against plumbing loss? That is, is plumbing head equivalent to vertical head with an air lift? Don't know.

The obvious advantage of many, tiny lift bubbles is more gas exchange. The water coming out of my lift pipe (many tiny bubbles) is pretty much foam. It does not form a standing head like a skimmer, and no "crust" of skimmed life forms. But every 45 seconds, or so, the RCSD exhaust fires into this area, and this may keep it clean.

What I can say is that I measured 20GPM flow at a 1.5 GPM air injection rate. That is the same flow as the ecowheel unit produces with much more air injection at a similar lift height. Why? I don't know. I did learn in my experiment that plumbing resitance plays a huge role in lift performance. The energy it takes to drop the water over the weirs, the resistance of input strainers, the loss from the tight 90 degree bends in the plumbing all add up.

My suggestion, for those of you silly enough to muck about with air lifts, is to set up the system (or a mock-up of the system) on the back patio and experiment. ABS plumbing, what I recommend because it comes in large diameter sizes and has readily available long sweep elbows, is cheap. "Quick fit" rubber fittings make joining together trial sections a breeze. Just try different plumbing arrangements and lift injectors to see if you can milk more performance out of the system.

I can safely state that doing any of the following will increase lift performance:
-Reducing plumbing runs.
-Increasing plumbing size.
-Replacing sharp bends with slow bends.
-Reducing vertical head, like the drop over a weir.
-Eliminating input strainers, or at least increasing their size.

Brett,
wow. At heart, you are an artist, with the meticulous nature of an engineer. Thanks for keeping the thread moving and taking time to respond in detail to the questions. Its still an interesting thread.

I finally gave in and installed a overflow with a beefy return pump on my system. I just had to get more flow through the vegetative filter. The action of my RCSD is to make the overflow run fast then suddenly stop flow, run fast..., etc. So I'm using that action to "surge" a little homemade alga scrubber. I'm calling it the motionless, surged, alga scrubber. So far I'm likeing it.

Sadly, the air lift/RCSD/scrubber experimental tank is likely to end next year as we plan to radically remodel our home or move. I'm feeling attached to some of these creatures I've kept over 3 years, so I hope I can keep some sort of tank going for the favorites. The good part is I feel I have enough time under my belt to take on a project the size of yours once our housing is resolved. Keep this thread moving, I'm sponging lots of ideas up!

[Putawaywet]

Hi Howard, always nice to hear from you.

Thanks for the kind words and for taking the time to drop in and clarify a few things.

If it wasn't for you and your ideas I probably would have wound up plumbing this thing with PVC and tight 90 degree bends.

Ref the ring injector: I have always had the possibility of the holes becoming clogged with calcification somewhere in the back of my mind as well as how I will deal with it if and when the time ever comes. I figure the easist will be to just drill through the double wall of the pipe and glue a hose barb into the injector. At that point I will be back to single point injection, but at least I will still have the ABS sweeps working in my favor.

Brett

[caevan]

What I can say is that I measured 20GPM flow at a 1.5 GPM air injection rate. That is the same flow as the ecowheel unit produces with much more air injection at a similar lift height. Why? I don't know. I did learn in my experiment that plumbing resitance plays a huge role in lift performance. The energy it takes to drop the water over the weirs, the resistance of input strainers, the loss from the tight 90 degree bends in the plumbing all add up.

From speaking with Chris Limcaco, the reason for this is, to maintain the sort of flow rate without reducing bubble size required a much greater air flow, I know a lot of effort was put into the design to maintain planktonic life within the system.

Could someone post a site for ABS fittings, trying to source these locally in (Australia) could be difficult.

[chask]

caevan,

I do not know what you are looking for but try McMaster. I did a search for ABS and it came up with several listings for fittings, sheets, tubes, etc.

http://www.mcmaster.com/

Glad to help if you have any trouble geting anything from them.

Charles

[Putawaywet]

Where ever you find them make sure your elbows are "sweeps" which are longer and have a more gentle radius. Get the longest radius you can find.

If you haven't already figured it out, the general reasoning behind the ABS stuff is that the sweeps are an off the shelf plumbing piece where as the same sweep in PVC is more of a specialized item at like triple the price.

Brett

[chask]

I got a call from Chris Owens with AE this morning. He was very nice and very helpful. One of the topics we touched on was the size of the tank and amount of flow it would require to handle various corals. Apparently the larger model can be configured to handle up to about 700 gallons (may have been 750 but I cannot remember for sure). This was surprising to me as my prior information indicated that 300 gallons was the upper limit. I believe I mentioned the 1200 gph rate I had heard before and I think he said that was a median flow. Anyway he did not think there would be a problem going with one unit (though he thought two would be much better in case I might want to add more corals and/or fish later) because there were things he could do to tweak filter for higher the flow.

This is more to the point of your recent posts and the main reason for this one. It is more expensive but using flexible tubing runs can provide a signinficant flow improvement. 15% comes to mind but we talked about a lot of things and a lot of numbers were mentioned. Unfortunatley I did not write any figures down. At the time I was more interested in my project and forgot about the flow stuff going on in this thread. If there is crawl or any other space underneath the tank and filter going through the floor to get more vertical difference in the flow path also provides some significant increase as well. I got the impression that there may be another method or two but I suspect from your posts you may already thinking of these things.

We also talked about some occasional auxilliary flow (to stir things up a little) via gentle methods similar to the air lift pump currently used. Though he seemed hesitant to do it (said he did not think it would be necessary) it sounded like he had some ideas.

Chris did mention that they were wokring on some new marketing things regarding the tank and associated items. I do not think they are any great secret but will not mention them because I am not sure how much he wants out yet. Glad to ask him permission though if anyone is interested. From the way he talked it will be out soon anyway.

Charles

[t12345]

How many different models of the ecowheel are there? I thought there was just the one model M12 the 20x20x34 unit and it was supposed to service approxiamately 500gal.
I was wondering what Chris is currently suggesting in regards to the bioballs at the bottom of the ecowheel unit. there was a thread about whether it contributed to detritus buildup and subsequent nitrate level in the water.
I've had a unit on order for 2 months now and my aquarium manufacturer is still waiting for the unit. If it does not arrive soon , I'm going to scrap that plan and go to a conventional setup; even though I like the concept.
Tim

[chask]

Tim wrote:
How many different models of the ecowheel are there? I thought there was just the one model M12 the 20x20x34 unit and it was supposed to service approxiamately 500gal.

Somehow I got the impression that there were 2 but then again I thought it was more like a maximum of a 300 gallon tank. What do I know? I have got to be one of the newest cherries here if not the newest. Anyway, I was deifnitely told 700 gallon (or maybe 750, but I think 700) this morning. 12 does sound like the right model number he mentioned.


I was wondering what Chris is currently suggesting in regards to the bioballs at the bottom of the ecowheel unit. there was a thread about whether it contributed to detritus buildup and subsequent nitrate level in the water.

I heard both bioballs and live rock mentioned. He said it was to reduce air bubbles in the tank. We did not go into it further.


I've had a unit on order for 2 months now and my aquarium manufacturer is still waiting for the unit. If it does not arrive soon, I'm going to scrap that plan and go to a conventional setup; even though I like the concept.


I like the concept a lot but this is not a comforting thought as I am currently thinking about buying one, no two. Did he promise a delivery? I will say Chris did mention some things they are doing a little differently.

Anybody else out there - I would love to here their experiences with the system. Please PM or e-mail me. I think I am going to start another thread about this as this is getting off Putwaywet's topic.

Aside:
As I look at this I probably should have just responded without all the formatting. But now that I have kind of figured it out . . well I guess the novelty will eventually pass.:) Probably not soon enough for most of you though.

Charles

[piercho]

Could someone post a site for ABS fittings In the US, black ABS is the most common material sold for drain plumbing. At a typical hardware here, sizes from 1 1/2" up to 4" are available. It's intended for low-pressure applications. It has been fine for the purposes I've used it for. It will fit to PVC fittings if you thave to transition, but joining is tricky. Oatey sells a green PVC-ABS transition cement which has work for me on joints up to 6". You could also try a thin silicone like Marine Goop if you have to deal with transition joints. PVC is fine for use, but PVC sweep joints are hard to come by unless you special order, and the prices are high. Another option for joining is a rubber product with clamp fittings called "Qwik Fit". They are expensive, though, and I prefer hard (solvent welded) joints below the waterline. Kwik fits are great for running tests, though.It is more expensive but using flexible tubing runs can provide a signinficant flow improvement I absolutely love flexible PVC. At hardwares like Home Depot, its sold as "SPA flex", and is priced through the roof in limited diameters. Try a major plumbing supplier or a commercial aquatic store like Aquatic Eco Systems (AES). AES sells it in black and white in lots of diameters. With the smaller sizes (up to 1 1/4"), Chisty's Red Hot BLUE has worked great to join the flex to rigid PVC for me. I've never tried to join flex PVC to ABS, and would not recommend it. I would highly recommend the flex PVC for air lift plumbing - or any tank plumbing for that matter.

[Putawaywet]

I originally ordered some 2" black spa flex from A.E., and while it was not prohibitively expensive, I discovered that trying to get it inside my cabinets - specifically feeding it through the holes in the cabinet walls while still maintaining all the necessary bends was an extremely difficult task. About all I was able to manage was a 24" radius give or take.

Perhaps one could heat it and massage it into a tighter radius but 2" dia is pretty tuff stuff and. Laying prone inside a cabinet while wrestling non-cooperative hose proved to be an excercise in my patientence.

But if you can make it work I'd highly recommend it since it will not only reduce frictional losses, but save you some time and effort with your plumbing.

Re: The BioBall issue.... I'm not only seeing an increase in bubbles in the display since I removed the bioballs, but I also have a reduction of sponge growth on the grids in the lower portion of the filter. No doubt, the ring injector mod is probably contrbuting to to my bubble issue to some degree.

When I spoke to Morgan Lidster at Inland Aquatics he told me that he removed the bioballs from one of his 2 tanks and is also getting some bubbles returning to the tank.

As far as the filter sizing... I don't see why it can't be scaled to fit whatever tank you want. It should just be a matter of increasing the acrylic tank and wheel size proportional to the size of the aquarium.

And yes, if you increase the size of the head in the Airlift you should be able to increase the flow. At least I'm reasonably sure. Piercho will have to chime in on this - perhaps there is some breakeven point where additional head no longer matters but I can't help but wonder what kind of flow you would see if you ran your plumbing thru the floor to the basement and then tied back into a 12' airlift under the EcoWheel ???

Brett

[chask]

Putawaywet wrote:
As far as the filter sizing... I don't see why it can't be scaled to fit whatever tank you want. It should just be a matter of increasing the acrylic tank and wheel size proportional to the size of the aquarium.

Chris was not talking about increasing the size of the filter. We discussed space requirements as I need that information to complete the layout of the equipment room. He told me the unit is 20" x 20" and to allow for 2' x 2' for the air flow vent at the back and some other equipment or work space around the filter. I am not sure I understand. I too would think that surface area of the algae plates would have to increase in some proportion to increasing tank volume. Perhaps it is already way oversized.

matt & pam
Sent you a PM. Don't know if you have not been on or if you never check or just don't respond to those.

[piercho]

yes, if you increase the size of the head in the Airlift you should be able to increase the flow Snailman passed these values on to me years ago. They are from an old AES catalog when they were trying to market their own ring injectors. You will see that the values are quite high, but remember that this is for in-tank, unrestricted (by plumbing) lifts:

Depth 1.0CFM 1.5CFM 2.0CFM
1" pipe
24" 8GPM 10GPM 13GPM
48" 21GPM 24GPM 28GPM

1.5" pipe
24" 16GPM 17GPM 18GPM
48" 36GPM 36GPM 42GPM

2" Pipe
24" 20GPM 24GPM 30GPM
48" 42GPM 48GPM 61GPM

In these cases, for a 2X increase in lift heigth, the increase in flow is over 2X. So it looks good. But consider your air pump. Even if the pump can handle the pressure, you will still get reduced air output at increased head. Lets say you get half the air output at twice the head. On paper, it looks like you'll get better flow rates. In reality? Don't know. Not easy to test in mock-up either, unless you have a 2nd-level deck.

You'll need the output curve for the air pump you intend to use when considering how tall to make the lift. My pump, a linear piston Medo AC602, stalls out at about 5 psig. But the "knee" in the performance curve is at about 2.5 psig. Past 3 psig, output drops off faster. So, unless I was going to use a different pump, I'd keep the pressure that pump sees under 3 psig.

[matt & pam]

chask,
you've got PM.
Matt

[matt & pam]

FWIW, Chris now is offereing a flex PVC plumbing kit with the eco-wheel.

Matt

[wbburris]

I started up a custom, used Eco-Wheel about 7 months ago. It doesn't have anything below the box where the wheel is located; only 3/4, and 1" hose barbs. I have a RIO in the sump, and pump approx. 2-3gpm thru the unit back into the sump. The algae is red which the Tang likes (does not like green). I have a 400g tank with LR, few fish, and many varieties of corals. I am not using a skimmer. I think that between the LR, oolithic sand bed, and the Eco-Wheel the water stays clear, and there has never been an algae problem. I would like to eliminate the sump, but I would be pumping air into the tank. My objective is to use the least amount of equipment to have a beautiful, and healthy tank, and livestock.

[t12345]

In regards to the restrictions to water flow, are the factors limited to one side or the other, ie. influent vs effluent? If the influent side had the minimum number of turns in the piping then flow and surge should be mimimally affected? On the effluent side if you had a number of turns in the piping and it slowed the flow down, would you just get a decrease in the number of revolutions in the wheel and number of surges/minute? I want to maintain the peak velocity for the surge on the influent side. My installation is somewhat convoluted, so I'm concerned about dropping peak flow for the surge.
any comments please?
thanks tim

[wbburris]

I just circulate a small flow from the sump to the EW, and back to the sump. I don't have a surge, and couldn't have one with the small piping. I cut two more triangular openings in the side of the wheel to match the other two so there wouldn't be a hesitation in the wheel rotation. The wheel stopped for a while in one spot on each revolution. This caused the algae to bleech out in that area. The more uniform rotation of the wheel now prevents that problem. The EW makes a nice item to look at, but I believe a refugium would be less comlicated, and limiting. I wouldn't know if is beneficial without disconnecting it. I think the sand, LR, and sump is all that is necessary.

[chask]

wbburris wrote:
I just circulate a small flow from the sump to the EW, and back to the sump. I don't have a surge, and couldn't have one with the small piping. I cut two more triangular openings in the side of the wheel to match the other two so there wouldn't be a hesitation in the wheel rotation. The wheel stopped for a while in one spot on each revolution. This caused the algae to bleech out in that area. The more uniform rotation of the wheel now prevents that problem.
Is the lack of a surge due to the EW no longer hesitating?


wbburris wrote:
The EW makes a nice item to look at, but I believe a refugium would be less comlicated, and limiting. I wouldn't know if is beneficial without disconnecting it. I think the sand, LR, and sump is all that is necessary.

How large a sump or refugium do you have and what is the recommended or 'rule of thumb' range on a 400 gallon tank? From what I have read and been told the EW (with a 2'x2' footprint and the height of the tank) will handle a system almost twice the size of yours. When I look at the plumbing Putawaywet has, the lack of the other items to maintain (skimmer, etc.), and the size of the EW relative to a large sump, I do not see how the EW is more complicated. Would you please explain?

wbburris wrote:
My objective is to use the least amount of equipment to have a beautiful, and healthy tank, and livestock.

Wouldn't we all? I just would like to do this with a more natural approach.

Thanks
Charles

[wbburris]

The EW has to be mounted with its axle above the water level in the tank. If the tank, and EW are made as an operating unit then it is simple. The air pump will product about 20 gpm water flow into the EW. The surging action of the EW may generate 2x that into the tank.
Since my EW is non-standard, a lot of problems arise when trying to make it operate as a standard unit. Since it doesn't have the lower section, it would require a sump on the discharge to allow air to escape. If the EW is standard, and it can be mounted above the tank then it is probably the simplest system out there.

[chask]

wbburris,

Thanks. I had sort of come to that conclusion but was confused by your post. I appreciate your clarification.

Thanks
Charles

[chask]

Putawaywet
One of the newer probs that has developed seems to be directly related to placing the tanks on the carpet. The weight of the reef tank caused that section to settle just a tad more than the pier piling tank or the middle section with the EcoWheel.


Haven't heard much about this since your post several weeks ago. For that matter, nothing in about 2 weeks. Have you made any progress on the siphon/washer setup? Or is the holiday season eating up your free time?

Hope all is well

Thanks
Charles

[Putawaywet]

Sorry I went AWOL, but I had a death in the family Dec. 12th and things have been kinda hectic. It's amazing how much paperwork is involved and how many people have to be notified to sort out an estate. With that and the Holidays I barely had time to check email let alone stop in here to surf the board.

Otherwise, yes the powerwasher is finished... I just need to work out a few quirks. It appears that while the quick disconnects seemed like a good idea at the time, I seem to have a vaccuum leak on the inlet side of the pump. Either that, or my hoses are sucking air where they slide over the hosebarbs on the disconnects. So, other than a whole bunch of microbubbles entering the cannister, which necessitates opening the bleed off valve every 15 minutes, it works great. Although in hindsight, I think I could have gone bigger than a Mag12 for my pump.

I'm going to try and replace the disconnects with some regular hosebarbs and see if that fixes the prob. If it does, I'll go back and play with the disconnects and see if I can get them to work since the whole idea is for me to be able to roll the hoses up and store them in a rubbermaid tub and then slide the powerwasher setup back into the cabinet.

I have pics but it seems I have filled up my gallery and am out of space. I was planning to upgrade to a paid membership but with everything going on I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Brett

[Zacrifice]

Hey Brett
Email me with the photos and I will gladely host them for you untill such time as you get your own site..

benmichels@bigpond.com

Any and all photos you want to post I will be happy to host for as long as needed

[Konadog]

Brett, you can also email GregT (one of the Mod's) for more space here on RC. If you support RC (I believe) you get more space also.

[Putawaywet]

Thanks, I appreciate the offers.

I could have sworn that when the changes were made last year to the site no longer allowing direct uploads to posts GregT said if you needed more space to just email, but when I inquired about that very thing on the feedback forum I was told I needed to upgrade to a paid membership. So now I'm a little confused

Not that I have anything against upgrading, it's just that I haven't gotten that far down on my "to do" list yet.

However, I'm about due for another update (which is totally worthless without pics) so give me a couple more weeks and one way or another I'll get something put together.

But don't get too excited.... I think it's going to be kind of anti-climatic after the peir piling so I hope everyone doesn't mind more growth pics and prgress reports.

Brett

[chask]

Get too excited - Not me. (Now where is that smiley face bouncing off the walls with the tongue hanging out?)

In all seriousness, please post those too. Being new to the salt water part of the hobby (err, obsession :D) I enjoy seeing grow out pics. Gives me an idea of what a good tank should look like.

I am also interested in the tank cleaning set up. Not to mention seeing how the Eco-Wheel is holding up.

chask

[wbburris]

I have the upper half of an EcoWheel for sale. The unit was custom made for the previious owner. It does not have the bioball section.

[salty joe]

I have a couple plumbing questions.

Is there anything growing on the inside of your pipes that impede the flow of water?

Is the return pipe to the filter set up like a Durso? Is a quiet?

[wbburris]

If this question is regarding the EcoWheel I have for sale, it is simply a box with the wheel in it. The wheel takes up all of the space in the box. The bottom of the box has 3 ea. holes for 2" bulkheads. The centerline of these holes runs from corner to corner. One is for the air pump which I have, and is also for sale separately. The other two holes are for getting water into, and out of the box. I also have the instruction manual. If you aren't familiar with the EcoWheel concept, I will briefly describe it. The air pump lifts water up into the box from below. The flow is approximately 25 gpm (1500gph). The part I liked best about it is the pods, etc. that grow in the wheel, and elsewhere in the system that end up going thru the box do not get exposed to the damaging affects of an pump. I hope this answered you question plus some.

[Putawaywet]

Originally posted by salty joe
I have a couple plumbing questions.

Is the return pipe to the filter set up like a Durso? Is a quiet?

The overflows run anywhere from 100%-50% (depending on evap) flooded at all times. And since there is no air being sucked into the return line there is no noise such as you normally get with gravity fed sumps. Hence, no need for standpipes - regular or modified.

Originally posted by salty joe
Is there anything growing on the inside of your pipes that impede the flow of water?

Nothing beyond the usual thin layer of brown slime/sludge identical to what I have observed in my tanks that came before this one. That and a whole bunch of tiny limpits that use the pipes as shortcuts between the two tanks.

Brett

[salty joe]

Is your return line connected directly to the bottom of the tank with no standpipe, surrounded by an overflow box to skim water off of the surface?
Does the overflow box, it has one, need to be adjusted very often?

[wbburris]

Do not understand last sentence.
Yes, all connections are on the bottom. The algae that grows on the wheel pulls out the bad stuff. It does the skimming. The algae byproduct is oxygen. As the algae grows you just scrape off the excess. The ideal location for the EW is above the tank water level.

[salty joe]

Thanks Brett,
Can you give a quick detail of how the water exits the display tank?

[Reefologist]

Do you run a calcium reactor or some type of dosing system with the eco wheel set-up?......just wondering...thank you.

[wbburris]

If the EW is mounted above the display tank then water exits via the overflow box to the sump. Water from the sump is pushed up to the box via the air pump, and sent into the bottom of the EW box. Go to www. aquaticengineers.com for a typical plumping arrangement.
The algae growing on the wheel pulls out the junk that a skimmer would ordinarily remove. I didn't run a skimmer. You will need to provide calcium by some means.
I could not mount the EW above my tank so I have reverted to a conventional setup. I am now changing from a 25g sump under the tank to a 125g. sump external to the tank, and plan to use Miracle Mud in it. I have installed a Korallin Ca reactor. I like the way it works, and so do the corals. The principle of their design is good, but the workmanship in the assembly area needs closer supervision, or a change in supervisors. There were too many leaks. It is just as easy to make a connection right, as wrong.

[Putawaywet]

Originally posted by salty joe
Is your return line connected directly to the bottom of the tank with no standpipe, surrounded by an overflow box to skim water off of the surface?
Does the overflow box, it has one, need to be adjusted very often?

Yes. One 2" bulkhead plumbed inside the bottom of the overflow box. The box has slots at both the top and mid level of the tank so it pulls water from high and low. There is nothing special about the overflow - it is like any other traditional overflow minus the standpipe. The only thing that probably appears uncommon is the dual grating, which isn't actually required, just something I requested after seeing it on various tanks over the years.

Originally posted by salty joe
Can you give a quick detail of how the water exits the display tank?

Like any other acrylic tank that has a built in overflow box. Just to clarify, my tanks are pretty much standard tanks built like any other - the only exception is in addition to the overflow boxes I have influent boxes in the corners - which are basically overflow boxes in reverse. Water returning from the EcoWheel comes up thru the bulkheads in the bottom of the influent boxes, then overflows into the tank like water pouring out of a bucket (similar to how water pours put of those Penguin biowheel filters if that makes it easier to visualize) The influent boxes are the ones that are a bit unique as they have a sliding peice of acrylic that can be adjusted up and down to dial in the water flow as it enters the tank. I had a good pic somewhere back at the beginning but the pics got toasted when the site admin revoked the ability for direct uploads into threads. it was retroactive to all existing pics:(

Originally posted by Reefologist
Do you run a calcium reactor or some type of dosing system with the eco wheel set-up?......just wondering...thank you.

Ca reactor? No, not at present, I'm just dripping Kalk, which surprisingly, is working quite well in spite of the number of SPS I am keeping. Ca. runs around 390-410ppm pretty reliably. I'll admit at times it can be a little labor intensive, but apparently not so much that I have become bothered to get up off my rear and engineer an automatic topoff system. I do have a 16 gal poly tank inside the pier piling cabinet but so far it's just sitting there empty. I'm kicking around the idea of a Litermeter automatic dosing system somewhere down the road hooked to the poly tank. Perhaps something as fancy as a kalk stirrer could become a reality. However, for whatever reason, I just don't find myself excited over Ca reactors so I don't see one of those anytime in the near future.


wbburris: I certainly welcome having another fellow EW user joining in, although it sounds like your setup is quite different than mine in more ways than one. However, if you wouldn't mind I'd like to ask that you go back and skim the previous pages so you have an idea of what has already been discussed and where we are currently at. That way you won't be jumping in trying to explain things that were explained pages ago. :)

Brett

[Putawaywet]

Ok, since I'm gearing up for another update how about I just ask everyone what they want pics of?

Put your requests in and I'll see what I can do.

Overflows?
Lighting?
Full tank shots?
Closeups of corals for growth comparisons?
Another one of my cat? :)

Brett

[matt & pam]

Full tank shots and a shot of what your wheel looks like from the top, i.e., show the algea. Can you also show what the waste looks like after you scrape?

Just received a call, they have my tank completed and the eco-wheel is finally there too. Hope to go pick it up next week.

Matt

[salty joe]

coral growth, all of the above

[caevan]

You can connect a Ca reactor, by bleeding of from the pipe that returns water from the Eco wheel to the main tank.

When I purchased mine, I was given the necesary parts to plumb in a reactor.

I use a Korralin reactor with my Eco wheel setup

[chask]

I'll second Matt & Pam and Salty Joe. I would also like to see some pics of the cleaning system you made.

Matt & Pam - Hope we get to see something of your setup. Think you could be persuaded to start a thread or PM/e-mail some pics?

caevan - How about yours? Sounds like it has been going for a while.

chask

[caevan]

I posted a picture early on in this thread, but you can try my Gallery
www.greatsagehabibi.com/gallery

[matt & pam]

It's going to be a while before I start up the tank. It's going in the basement, and the contractor is starting in March to finish it. I'll be glad to start a thread.

One question, I'm placing the stand/tank on top of tile. How far out from the stand would you recommend tiling? 2' vs 3' The rest of the room will be carpeted. Thanks...

Matt

[Putawaywet]

Originally posted by matt & pam
One question, I'm placing the stand/tank on top of tile. How far out from the stand would you recommend tiling? 2' vs 3' The rest of the room will be carpeted. Thanks...Matt

Matt, I'd recommend as far out as you think you will need for tile to be under your feet when working on the tank. For me that was 2 rows of 12" tiles for a total of 2'.

The only glitch is when I use a step stool, half of it is on the carpet and the other half is on the tile - but not a huge problem. I probably could have gone 3 tiles wide but at the time I just thought it would be a little much.

FWIW, I left a generous 4" of space between the stand and the wall and that seems to have been a good number. Just enough to make it easy if you need to dink around back there, but not too much that it looks like you didn't get it close enough to the wall.

Brett

[nonot8946]

For those that use these algae scrubber systems, how much algae would you say migrates back into the tank? Does it pose a problem (for example, one person said his tang just ate it all up.)

[picture the reef]

I have a foxface that immediately gulps down any algae that makes it back to the tank. He acts like it is a real treat.:D

[Putawaywet]

I get a little bit in the tanks when I harvest the wheel, but it clears up after a half hour or so. Anything of any real size gets picked off by my 2 tangs almost immediately.

Brett

[piercho]

For those that use these algae scrubber systems, how much algae would you say migrates back into the tank? Are you are asking if algae fragments from the scrubber can act to "seed" the main display so that it is actually a cause of algae problems? I don't percieve that as a risk with my scrubber. I'm presently getting about 4 ounces of wet algae volume from the scrubber every week or two. That much filamentous algae growth in the display would choke out branching corals in short order, but it does not happen. Basically, the system should be set up so that the algae growing in the scrubber enjoys optimal conditions for growth, so it outcompetes algae in the tank. What algae tries to grow in the tank gets grazed. Some graze-resistant algae like valonia may make slow progress in the tank, but the scrubber grabs and fixes the nutrients becoming avilable faster than the most tank algae can.

[Putawaywet]

Hey Howard,

Change of subject here... I reviewed some pics taken after my innintial setup and it's looking like my flow is down a bit. I suspect the ring injector holes are finally starting to plug with calcium buildup. Either that, or the air pump is losing it's kick.

Since I can't get the airlift assembly out for maintenance I think I'm just going to shut it down, drain the pipes and drill right down the center of the 1/2" hosebarb until I punch thru the interior wall of the injector housing. So, basically I'll be back to the original design from A.E.



Otherwise, for the rest of you folks that haven't grown bored and jumped ship yet, I'll start in with more updates sometime next week. I still have more work ahead of me. Like a good cleaning of the reef tank, possibly even removal of the sandbed. I also acquired a couple more IceCap mini LED units so I'll be pulling those cold cathode tubes out and putting the LEDs in. I really want to try and get some nighttime pics of those - they're pretty slick.

I picked up some more gorgs (although they're being a bit difficult at the moment) and I did a bit of SPS fragging so I've spread some stuff around here and there. The tank has pretty much evolved into a SPS/Gorg biotope. So there goes the neighborhood :)

Be back soon.

Brett

[chask]

Brett,

I am curious about why you are contemplating removing the sand bed. I remember you saying before that you were not a DSB fan but did not want to go into it. Part of the same reason?

Also wondering about the reduction in flow. Is this a maintenance issue? Obviously the air pump is an easy fix (well maybe not in that I bet they are not cheap) but the plumbing issue concerns me. Could the EW be assembled so that this sort of cleaning could be accomplished more easily - perhaps some ball valves and disconnects around the injector assembly?

And if you are taking more pics and cleaning the tank(s) I would still love to see some of your cleaning setup. I have several ideas about what I would do but your's have been so impressive I'll bet I could get more than a couple of good ideas.

Thanks
Charles

[Putawaywet]

The sandbed removal, if it happens, will be a swap not complete removal. Current sand is Tahitian Black Moon sugar sized. Proposed replacement is a larger sized aragonite that should be easier to hydrovac.

The perceived reduced flow issue is from a design alteration I made during construction. It has nothing to do with A.E.'s design of the EcoWheel.

Pics will be a mix of stuff. Pics of the wheel/algae, LED install, growth/size comparisons, as well as the new cleaning station. Also, anything else that looks interesting.

Brett

[chask]

Brett,

I remember (without going back to get the particulars) your mention of some modifications to the air nozzle with the hope of increasing the flow rate of the air pump. I assume that this is what you are referring to. I thought it a good idea. Were the holes too small and thus more prone to clogging? I guess I am heading towards a thousand (well not literally but a bunch of) questions that perhaps could best be asked by saying was it worth it and would you do it again, perhaps with mods to make servicing easier?

Looking forward to your pics. I sort of got started on RC following your thread. Learned a lot from it (others' too). Really look forward to more on your setup.

Thanks
Charles

[t12345]

Brett,
When did you put in the top off reservoir? How do you have it hooked up? I guess there must a sensor and reservoir pump, just wondering how you have it hooked up and if the surge from the eco wheel has an effect on it. Hope to be getting my tank (350 bow front) soon, by the way where did you get the black pvc piping?
Thanks,
Tim

[matt & pam]

Charles,

Maybe this response to a question I asked Piercho will help.

Re: ring injector
"There is no perfect number of a certain size hole for every application. Lift system performance is strongly effected by many factors, with air bubble size only being one factor. Air bubble size will also be dependant on the air volume injected and the injection differential pressure.

My injector is made with dozens of very small holes drilled into a matrix pattern. I inject over 1.5 CFM into a 54" tall, 1.5" diameter lift pipe and I get quite a fine foam at the top. I don't think that this is what you want. From what I remember that putawaywet told me about his sytem, the pump provided with the EcoWheel has a lot of output, much more than mine. Also, you have to overcome some vertical head in the weirs and backpressure from quite a few bends. For more vertical lift you want fewer holes and larger bubbles. I would speculate that 8 evenly spaced holes of 1/8" size would give you good results, but I'm just guessing.

Let's think this through. The EcoWheel air injector fitting into the lift pipe is a 1/2" diameter fitting, right? The area at the injection point is then (pi)*r^2 = pi*(1/4)^2=pi/16. Split among 8 holes that is pi/16 * 1/8 = pi/128. Setting pi/128 = pi*r^2, then r=(1/128)^1/2 = 0.088. The diameter is 0.177. The next sized down common drill bits are
11/64 = 0.171 -> 95%
5/32 = 0.15625 -> 78%
9/64 = 0.140625 -> 63%
1/8 = 0.125 -> 50%

So yeah, 1/8" looks like a reasonable size to me. Half the total injection area than a single 1/2" fitting, but I still think that it would be OK. I would not make an 8-point injector for this application with holes smaller than 1/8", or larger than 11/64". If there looks like there is any science to this, there is not. I'm just trying to get a feel if 1/8" is in the ballpark. The best way to optimize an air system is to set it up and run tests with different configurations of injectors. Or, you can just take the speculations of someone like me and hope for the best!

The big killer in air-lift systems is vertical head and plumbing drag. Sweep elbows and as large as possible of pipe (except the lift pipe) will cut down your drag and increase your total flow. Both putawaywet and I used ABS drain pipe for our plumbing because sweep elbows in large diameters are easy to get. Flex PVC would also be a good option and could reduce the 90 degree bends to slow curves with less resistance than sweeps."

Of course, someone else talked about that the eco-wheel was designed to work with the single injector, and changing (increasing) the dynamics could impact planktonic life, perhaps negatively. This is theoretic though. Now that I found out the ports would probably clog, perhaps I'll just stick with the original design on my eco-wheel.

HTH.

Matt

[chask]

matt & pam,

In one sentence you speak about setting up the EW in the past tense then at the end you sound like it is soon to be done. Which is it? Any pictures yet?

Thanks
Charles

[Putawaywet]

Originally posted by chask
I remember (without going back to get the particulars) your mention of some modifications to the air nozzle with the hope of increasing the flow rate of the air pump. I assume that this is what you are referring to.

That's correct.

Originally posted by chask
Were the holes too small and thus more prone to clogging? I guess I am heading towards a thousand (well not literally but a bunch of) questions that perhaps could best be asked by saying was it worth it and would you do it again, perhaps with mods to make servicing easier?

Holes too small? Probably not. Prone to clogging? Yes. But that's to be expected when you have an air/saltwater interaction - you are bound to get calcification.

Originally posted by t12345
[QUOTE][i]When did you put in the top off reservoir? How do you have it hooked up? I guess there must a sensor and reservoir pump, just wondering how you have it hooked up and if the surge from the eco wheel has an effect on it. Hope to be getting my tank (350 bow front) soon, by the way where did you get the black pvc piping?

Tim, the reservoir is not hooked up as of yet. Just an empty tank, a length of tubing and a few quick disconnects. I'm still kicking around the idea of how I will hook it up. Right now the Litermeter has me attention as it looks to be the most fool proof. I don't really trust float switches and I'm not in the mood to fab something with double redundancy. If I go with the Litermeter it would just be a matter if tweaking the dosage to match the rate of evap. And while that might ultimately mean tweaking on a weekly basis, I feel more comfortable with that than a float swith setup where a stuck switch could send the entire contents of my kalk reservoir into both tanks.

My piping is 2" black ABS from the local hardware store. No need to pay extra for PVC as this stuff works just fine.

Brett

[Putawaywet]

I know it’s been a little while since I have posted any updates but I finally managed to get some work done on the tanks which means I now actually have something to post for those who might still have an interest.

However, since it’s going to take a bit of work to put this latest update together my game plan is to add things in sections over the next week or so rather than delay things any longer trying to put it all together in one big update.

First off, here’s the canister filter I fab’d to handle some of my various husbandry tasks from mechanical filtration to water polishing and/or carbon. At the heart of the setup is an Ocean Clear canister that’s basically a scaled down version of it’s big brother which is commonly seen in commercial aqua culture and public aquariums. It’s rated at 1200gph and comes with 3/4” threaded inlets/outlets and a removable pleated micron cartridge. I mounted the canister to one of those pre-fab’d shelf boards (12” wide with white vinyl finish) that you get from your local HD or Lowes. The shelf was then fitted with drawer slides and mounted in a custom wood frame that I built and subsequently covered in matching beige carpet (yeah it’s a sickness) The frame was then attached to the bottom of the cabinet with stainless screws.

The pump is a Mag12 and plumbed with gray sch40 pvc obtained from US Plastics Corp. I added a few ball valves, installed a bleed off valve in the lid and finished it off with a couple quick couplers (disconnect fittings).

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770Cannister-01.jpg

The hoses were measured and cut and then attached to the parts that would hook onto the tops of the tanks. These are really nothing more than candy-cane shaped pipes made out of more gray pvc that I assembled so they would hang securely over the top of my acrylic tanks. The inlet pipes have plastic strainers over the ends of the pvc pipes to ensure no unwanted animals get sucked into the pump (I discovered that those slip in bulkhead strainers slipped easily over the ends of the pipe and made for a perfect final touch) and the outlet pipes were finished off on the ends with 90 degree elbows left unglued so they could be swiveled left or right depending on my needs.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770Cannister-02.jpg

Here’s the unit up and running on my pier piling tank

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770Cannister-03.jpg

And a close-up of the quick disconnects which are also scaled down versions of commercial fittings. The couplers allow for the hoses to be separated from both the filter as well as the parts that hook onto the tank to allow for ease of storage.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770Cannister-04.jpg

I’ve had the opportunity to use the unit on about a dozen occasions now from everything from running carbon to backup circulation for times that I needed to take the main filtration off-line. Overall, it works well, although in hindsight I think having to do it all over again I would have bumped up the pump a couple sizes because looking at how elaborate the thing wound up being it’s pretty obvious I’m a long way from 1200gph coming out the other end. (A quick read of the gauge during operation shows about 4 psi on average.) Oh well, there always the opportunity to upgrade at a later date if I decide I need more flow.

Also, I do seem to be getting a small amount of micro bubbles coming out of the return lines which I’m thinking are coming from a small vacuum leak at one of the quick disconnects on the inlet side of the pump. That, and the thing isn’t the most user friendly thing the prime. I basically have to connect the hoses to the filter and then pour water in the opposite ends until I get everything filled with water. At that point I connect to the pvc ends and turn it on.

The longest I have ever used it in one stretch is about 36 hours as it’s main purpose is really just spot cleaning or water polishing. Right now, my routine is to fire it up and then blow off all the rocks with a power head or the hand-held wand (see below). I then let the filter run for a half hour or so before repeating the procedure with the power head. It’s basically one of those maintenance types of deals where I can do it in-between doing other stuff over the course of an evening.

Here’s a shot of the wand I made to go with the unit. It’s basically a 1/4” length of gray pvc that I glued to a small ball valve that can be operated with my thumb. The nozzle end was heated and bent to a mild angle and then fitted with a reducing bushing to concentrate the flow and give me a bit of a spray action when in use. The end on the inlet side of the ball valve was fitted with another quick disconnect, attached to a 1/4” rubber hose, which was then attached to the bleed off valve in the canister lid via a second disconnect. I’d love to say this thing is the bomb but honestly it’s performance has turned out to be less than stellar. Problem #1 one is it is powered by water that has yet to be filtered reducing the volume of water passing thru the canister. Problem #2, is that no matter how far you open the ball valve you really don’t get a real geyser of a water flow. Problem #3, since it’s attached to the bleed off valve the darn thing burps air several times a minute. Oh well, better luck next time I guess.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770Cannister-05.jpg

Overall I’m pretty happy with how everything turned out and think it will serve me well for many years to come. Cost wise I probably have about $400.00-450.00 invested, which isn’t too bad considering I wanted everything to be top shelf. I imagine I probably could have substituted cheap vinyl tubing and white pvc from HD, but the cost for those two upgrades was really pretty reasonable when weighed against the price I paid for the canister assembly and the pump. So, I consider it money well spent. Besides, once I am finished and have emptied the water and stowed the hoses I merely slide the unit back into the cabinet and close the door.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770Cannister-06.jpg

Brett

[matt & pam]

Brett, do you run carbon in tank besides with this add-on filter?

I'm getting closer to starting my tank. My contractor is putting up drywall this week, should be done with the basement by the end of the month. I had a drain line put in the wall behind the tank, and ran two lines behind the wall for water replacement, both ro/di water and replacing salt water as well. I hope it works as planned.

Matt

[H20ENG]

Nice Brett!
AFA the bubbles, Is the the filter on the suction or discharge side of the pump? Hard to tell from the pics. If the filter is on the suction side, and starts to get dirty, the pump could slightly cavitate. You know this, just grabbing at straws:)

I LOVE those little CRC disconnects!

I made some similar "hooks" for doing water changes on various tanks. We had a ton of pressure on the line and the hook would actually blow out of the tanks! I stopped that by putting a tee on the end of the hook. Helped in blowing the substrate around, too.

[Putawaywet]

Originally posted by matt & pam
Brett, do you run carbon in tank besides with this add-on filter?

No. Beyond the idea of just hanging a bag in one of the influent boxes I'm not sure where I'd put it. I'd like to though, but hate to do something that restricts the flow.

Although, I did violate that old warning about not adding too much carbon too fast. Anyone remember me mentioning a gorg that I've had for 5 or 6 years that almost never (like 1 day a month at the most) extends polyps? Doesn't seem to grow, yet doesn't seem to die back either? Just sits there year after year looking the same as it did when I first bought it. Well, it's no longer a living parodox. Not in the least. So let this be a warning, friends don't let friends use carbon unjudiciously.

Originally posted by matt & pam
I'm getting closer to starting my tank. My contractor is putting up drywall this week, should be done with the basement by the end of the month. I had a drain line put in the wall behind the tank, and ran two lines behind the wall for water replacement, both ro/di water and replacing salt water as well. I hope it works as planned.

Sounds great, can't wait to see the pics.

[Putawaywet]

Chris, the filter is on the discharge side. I'm suspecting a vacuum leak. Those disconnects are nice indeed but I believe they are made for pressure not suction so that's why I'm looking at them as the source of the problem. Either that, or it's where the hose slips over the hosebarb ends on the disconnects. I secured them with double zip ties in lieu of metal clamps in case they bumped the acrylic tank. Maybe I should revisit my hose connections.

On a side note, back in your public aquarium days ever have anyone fully open a saltwater makeup valve really quickly and then try to rectify things by immediately cranking it back off. As I understand it there's a little something called a pressure wave that can roll back on itself. Nasty little thing that pressure wave because it seems that it can compromise the structural integrity of the PVC line quite quickly. Rumor has it, it was quite the show, frantic calls to life support to get the water shut down and all. Almost sorry I missed it :)

[Putawaywet]

Next on the list is a little modification to the airlift.

Problem #1 is that given that I wound up placing the setup directly on the carpet the added weight of the reef tank has caused it to settle, as best I can figure, about 1/4" more in relation to the rest of the system.

I have always used the eyeball method with my normal water level in that I try to run the water level just shy of the top of the grating in the upper overflow of the reef tank. Any higher and I don't get a good surface skimming, any lower and I run the risk of sporatic rotation of the EcoWheel.

However, with the tank now being a bit lower than everything else I have realized that by still eyeballing the water level via the overflow grating I'm actually running the system with less water than I did back at the beginning. And while I can't speak for all EcoWheel's, mine is very touchy about it's water level. Five (5) gals can make a big difference.

Problem #2 is that I compared some early photos back at the beginning to those lately and discovered that not only did the water level inside the EcoWheel tank look lower that it used to be, but just the amount of air going up the uplift appeared decreased as well. (Note: take lots of pics, lots and lots of pics because you never know when they will come in handy later)

So. I decided I needed to make some changes. Going on the assumption that the air-ring injector was suffering from a bit of clogging due to calcification, and given that I neglected to engineer it as a removable section for cleaning, I decided I need to make a drastic, albeit simple modification to the airlift.

I shut down the system, closed off all my ballvalves (You can never have too many ballvalves) and attached a small hose to the Jaco fitting in the bottom of the uplift pipe (so glad I put those in there). It took only about an hour for all the water to drain from the 3 influent boxes, associated piping, and the airlift tube itself. (While the water was draining I took the opportunity to disassemble the air pump, clean it, and check for warn or broken parts.) Once the water had drained I disconnected the air hose that runs from the "wet" end of the safety loop to the air injection site on the airlift. Next, I took a series of drill bits and drilled right down the center of the hose barb, thru the inner wall of the air-ring injector and into the center of the airlift pipe, completely bypassing the series of small holes that make up the air-ring injector. After I worked my way up to the biggest drill bit that seemed appropiate I re-connected the hose (actually, I took the opportunity to replace the hose with new, clean up the fittings and make things look just a tad nicer) and then refilled everything with approx 15 gals of NSW. All told it took about an hour and a half. When I threw the switch everything fired up just fine. First thing I noticed was an increase in flow within the tank. Also, the bubles within the airlift now appeared considerably larger and a good deal more agressive if that makes any sense. I really couldn't see any dicernable change to the water level within the EcoWheel itself, but there was a definately an increase in flow within the tank. Definately worth the effort.

So, in hindsight now, I think I'd have to say while it was fun to play around and tweek things I'd seriously reccomend leaving the method of air injection as A.E. had originally designed it. If you want to tweek your flow go with "sweeps" instead of tight 90 degree elbows, or better still, go with spa-flex hose as that seems to be the best option of all.

Next on the list I am going to try and modify the overflow grating on the reef tank to try and reclaim that 1/4" that I seem to have lost. Right now the plan is to drain a bit of water and take a Dremmel with a rotary bit and see if I can modify the opening so I can raise the water level back up and still have my surface skimming. Right now I'm probably a couple weeks away from giving that a go, I'd like to give the tanks a rest from all my hands on that they have suffered thru this last month.

Brett

[H20ENG]

Ahh yes, good ol water hammer.
A good way to find those not so strong joints in the pipeline...
We never had any main lines go south from water hammer. Though we had a 6" raw water line crack at an elbow in the pump room. Sometime, just for fun, try air welding a 6" fitting full of 53deg saltwater while 10' up on a ladder on a Friday night just before vacation....
We had one tank with a 3-way 2" ballvalve surge. It was a satellite tank of about 2000g, with a self contained filtration system. The filters were 2 of the pleated cartridges like you mentioned above, but big, pool size units. When the valve moved one way, it relieved the pressure from the filters and sent the water up to a waterfall like surge. When it returned, the filters would get a good case of water hammer, and popped several times, flooding the whole deck under the moving walkway.
The problem was solved by putting in an air pad- 5' of 6" clear pvc pipe with a cap on top. When the valve switched back to filter, the water would compress that air and rise up 2.5 feetinto the pipe. Dry floors after that:)
Sorry for rambling, tons of war stories, but good times:)

BTW, I read an OLD (1960's I think) article recently (Drum and Croaker) about clearing clogged airlifts while in place, but I cant remember exactly what they did. I'll have to find the article for you.

[Putawaywet]

Yes, big tanks do have the tendency to spill big amounts of water don't they. But as the guy who's NOT responsible for putting things back together when there's a big ooops I'd have to say it does make for some equally big laughs :)

Back to the topic at hand.....

Substrate:

The black sandbed finally went bye-bye. Kind of a shame because I really liked the rather unique look it gave the tank. But in all honesty, it needed to go. I remember reading back when I first set it up that someone who had tried it before me reported that after a period of time it had begun to look like a well used ashtray. Well, after 18 months I can't say that I disagree with that analagy. As the months rolled by my once pristine substrate began to take on a dull and dingy appearance. Not to mention that I was just kind of tired of looking at the old dark substrate. So over the last few weeks I have been slowly removing the old and adding in new. Although, I realistically could only get about 80% of the old stuff out as there were some spots under the rockwork that I just couldn't get to.

So far I've used about 60lbs of #3 & #5 grade aragonite reef sand but I will probably need to add another 15 or 20lbs after the first batch has settled and worked it's way around.

One surprising thing was the amount of gunk that came out with the old sand. It was nothing short of amazing. I was literally pouring bucket after bucket of dark brown water down the drain. Even more surprising was that all this time I had believed I was being rather deligent with my husbandry by blowing off the rocks every couple weeks and periodically using my HOB canister filters to scrub the water. Talk about a wake up call.

Also, taking on a task of this magnitude didn't come without a few problems along that way. Several days into the swap I began to notice several patches on a rather sweet neon green Hydnophora were beginning to die off. At first I thought it was just a adverse reaction to all the silt that was being stirred up, but after a few days I began to notice the recession was all ocurring on just one end of the colony. After a bit of thought I realized that it was on the side where I had been holding the hose that was spewing the replacement water. Interesting. Like most all creatures of habbit I replace water with nearly the same technique each and every time, right down to where I hold the hose while refilling the tank. So, after several days, 3 or 4 water changes, and a hundred or so gallons of NSW blowing directly on it the poor thing decided it couldn't take any more. Obviously I have no one to blame but myself for the damage so about the only thing I can do is clip off the dead portion of skeleton and wait for it to regrow. That, and to try and learn from my mistake.

Lighting:

Although I made these changes a few months ago they are still worth noting. My 10K 250w Ushio's were due for a change so I swapped them out for a pair of 10K AB's. Not a whole lot of difference, just a little less yellow to my untrained eye. FWIW, I did manage to break off both ceramic tabs on both bulbs for a total of 4 broken tabs. I think that's a new person best for me. Gotta love double ended pendants.

Also, as long as I had the canopy off and was dinking with my lighting, I went ahead and swapped out the T5's as well. Previously I had a pair of Blue+ along with a pair of Actinics. But believing that the Actinics weren't doing a whole bunch of anything I swapped in 4 new Blue+ tubes. Overall, I like this better than the 50/50 mix. A bit more blue, a little more punch and the corals still seem to glow as much or more as with the previous setup.

More recently I removed the cold cathode tubes I had been using for my moonlighting and installed one of IceCap's mini LED pro's in their place. Andy at IceCap had been nice enough to send me a couple to try and I have to say I really like the little things - not because they were free.... but because they really give the tank an slick look during the night. Way more glitter lines than the CC tubes. And the little suckers are powerful to boot. I originally was going to mount 2 over the reef but when I mocked them up the tank appeared way over lit. So I just went with one centered in the hood and it worked quite well. It easily covers my 48" tank with only a slight shadow on both acrylic ends approx 8" down from the top. Pretty amazing that a 4w LED can throw out that much light. I have to admit that they're a little pricey and I'm not sure I would have been so eager to replace the CC tubes had I had to cough up the money for these things myself, but sometimes I guess a guy can luck out and be in the right place at the right time. Either way, if anyone is considering these things don't hesitate to try one... they are housed in a nice blue metal box, have a little mini polished parabolic reflector inside, are plug and play and come with an adjustable mountig bracket.

I'd really like to get a couple shots of the tank at night but no matter how many times I have tried all I keep getting are these totally blacked out pics. I'll keep playing with the hopes that one day I just get lucky and score one of those really cool blue moonlight shots like others have posted.

Brett

[Putawaywet]

Here's something a few of you warm climate folks may find interesting.

I actually had to add a 2nd heater to one of my influent boxes. So, I now have a 200w AND a 250w heater.

Here's the tale of the temps.....

Ambient room temps average in the neighborhood of 75 to 76 degrees early evening thru early morning and 78 to 79 mid day to late afternoon.

Average tank temps are like 77.2 to 77.4 in the AM and 78.8 to 79.0 in the PM.

Which isn't all that bad for 570w of MH and approx 320w of T5. So it appears the system seems quite capable of maintaining 1 to 2 degrees over ambient room temp over the course of a 24 hour period. I think I can live with that.

Another thing of interest is that after all the cleaning and sand removal (along with something in the neighborhood of 200 gals of water changes over a 3 week period) my algae production has decreased to a slow crawl. I last harvested well over a week ago and the wheel looks like it was just done yesterday.

Also, I finally broke out the test kits figuring that after nearly a year I should probably take a look at my water quality. That, and I wanted some data to report on my update.

Here's what I got:

Nitrate, Nitrite and Ammonia all come back reading zero. P04 barely turned enough color to call it detectable. pH innitially came back a bit low at 7.8, but then I remembered I'm still unsing a Salifert lot # that had reported low readings so with the advised 2 point correction I'm up to 8.0

I tried getting a Strontium reading just for kicks but no matter how many times I tried I couldn't get repeatable readings from test to test. Others seem to be able to make the Salifert Sr kit work, I guess I'm not one of them.

Ca. came in at 390 which isn't bad considering I'm still dripping Kalk and occasionally tossing in some Kent Turbo Ca whenever I remember to (once a week or so)

Obviously the big number here is the Nitrate reading, which prior to the big bioball removal episode seemed to average about 10-20ppm. Strange, now that I think about it I never got around to re-measuring after removing the balls, but I'm funny that way sometimes. Regardless, it now comes up as undetectable with a Salifert test.

However, with that trade off now comes the issue of some micro bubbles. Not a lot, just enough to start sticking to the glass if I let the algae accumulate. It's not annoying enough to really get on my nerves, but I'd still prefer them not to be there. However, given the choice between elevated Nitrates and some micro bubbles, I'll take the bubbles.

Speaking of algae, not a hint of the stuff anywhere in the main reef display. Nada, Zero, Zip. Just the light dusting of the green on the tank walls. However, I did see a small bit of red Cyano in one particular spot that seemed to come and go. That was in an area at the front where I had a medium sized yellow Sarcophyton that, when expanded, would touch against the front acrylic of the tank. the Cyano seemed to appear on the front acrylic directly under the expanded leather. If I moved the leather so the Cyano was exposed to both light and flow the Cyano would disappear, so I have no idea if it was reduced water flow or the shade from the leather that the cyano seemed to like best. Either way, it's a moot point now as the leather was returned to my LFS a few weeks ago along with a few other pieces that had outgrown their spot.

Getting back to old news here, I know I've mentioned doing a lot of water changes in the last month, and while most of that was due to the sand removal, I just want to take a minute and say that it's really something I consider to be a cheap form of insurance. I won't hesitate to do a 25 gal H20^ at the drop of a hat. I mean what's $10.00-15.00 worth of water to protect thousands of dollars in livestock. So, don't be frugal with that water, change it, and change it often.

[piercho]

I'm glad you were able to restore your flow by installing a single point injector without having to do a major teardown. I'd hate to think that I influenced you to set up the injector in a way that you could not have recovered from when it did not turn out to be optimal. I don't think mine has lost flow but its hard to tell and, like you told me a while back, the flushing of the ports when the RCSD fires may be preventing blockage in mine.

AES once made air injection collars and I got the idea for mine from theirs. They no longer make them and I found this interesting line in AES tech talk 68: "Air Lift Notes"
Air-injection collars can improve performance on short pipes but, typically, they are not worth the installation and maintenance difficulty.

A move or house remodel is comming up which may require me to tear down the tank. One thing I like to do if that happens is bissect the injector and all the piping to see what happens in there over time. Another thing I intend to do is just install a single injector - exactly like you did - and see what difference it makes on a system thats been running a while.

[Putawaywet]

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

[picture the reef]

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

[Putawaywet]

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.

[matt & pam]

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

[Putawaywet]

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

[Chinese DNA]

http://www.sonic2000.com/bbs/index.php?showtopic=9542

this is my EcoWheel

[matt & pam]

Chinese DNA,

What is the material you wraped on the device? Any pics with it in action.

Matt

[Chinese DNA]

that is fibre material.
The system has never run, so I have not any pics with it in action

[matt & pam]

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

[caevan]

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

[matt & pam]

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

[Putawaywet]

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

[matt & pam]

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

[Putawaywet]

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

[matt & pam]

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

[caevan]

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.

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.

[Putawaywet]

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

[caevan]

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.

[caevan]

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,

[matt & pam]

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

[caevan]

What brand of pump do you guys use. The original eco-wheel was designed around a Thomas air pump Model 5120S. I use a 240V 50Hz version of the same model.
When I had my last pump looked at the technician should me the acutator, which floats between 2 large magnets, there was a certain amount of wear, on one side, which he said was caused, the acutator magnet not being properly balanced. This can be a problem with this type of pump and it is the luck of the draw on how a particular pump will go.
The thing I don't get it was cheaper to buy a new pump than replace the acutator and purchase a replacement diaphragm pump.

After the drama I went through last time ( my pump always failed at night) I keep a spare pump handy.

[Putawaywet]

Greetings everyone,

Well, where do I start? I guess it’s probably best if I start off by reiterating something that I have tried from time to time to pass on to old and new hobbyists alike. A little something that more times than not has served me well in nearly two decades of this hobby. However, with that said and much to my own embarrassment, one needs to actually take their own medicine for it to truly be effective because like nearly all humans of the species I am susceptible to periods of complacency that has proven that it will indeed come back around and bite me in the butt.

So friends and fellow hobbyists listen to me when I say: “Mr. Murphy does not phone ahead to schedule an appointment for a visit.”

My ordeal all started with my grandmother (whom raised me and was living with me) passing away August 10th after 2 very long and grueling weeks in the intensive care unit of our local hospital. She had been ill or some time and we all knew the end was near, but nonetheless; it was a very emotionally and physically draining period ending with a phone call in the middle of the night and a drive to the hospital for one final good bye. However, I do get to count my blessings that I was able to be there with her those last few hours and that she passed as peacefully and comfortably as possible.

Fast forward a week to this past Tuesday, the very night my mother, my girlfriend and myself were sharing a dinner in my grandmother’s honor, I come home to find a very ugly, and untimely noise coming from the EcoWheel air pump and a pair of tanks that had little if no flow. Luckily for those around me I was just too emotionally drained to do much more than shift into damage control and start trying to correct the problem.

I think I had previously mentioned that I was planning some maintenance on the tanks over my August vacation, but that had been put on permanent hold given my current family situation. Enter Mr. Murphy who with one little wave of his hand managed to turn everything on it’s ear and put me right back into the aquarium game whether I was prepared for it or not.

So, after disassembling the pump I discovered that one diaphragm was completely ruptured and I was running solely off the other diaphragm. This was just enough to inject a bit of air and move a small amount of water, but not nearly enough to create any real flow, let alone turn the wheel.

To make matters worse, and for reasons not readily apparent, after reassembling the pump I was further dismayed to find that I now had absolutely no air coming out of the pump whatsoever. So, too tired to tear it down again, I shifted gears and grabbed some powerheads. A half hour or so later I had restored water movement, and everything looked to be holding it’s own. At this point there was little more that I could do except head to bed and try to get some sleep. (OK. I’ll confess to giving the wheel a couple of spins in an attempt to keep the algae wet when I awoke for a middle of the night bathroom break.)


The following morning (Wednesday) I phoned Aquatic Engineers and was promptly greeted by a pleasant female voice on a recorded message prompting me to enter my party’s extension or leave a generic message and someone would get back to me as soon as possible. I did as instructed along with a follow-up email explaining my predicament. I crossed my fingers and prayed this would be the one time Chris would be in the office and checking his messages.

I then phoned Inland Aquatics looking for Morgan Lidster who had mentioned some time previous that he had a couple pumps he had picked up from a university that had torn down their EcoWheel tanks after a relatively short period. Morgan said he would have to look around and get back to me but if he had one he would part with it for around $400.00. Not exactly a home run by any stretch of the imagination, but at least I was speaking to a live person who was attempting to help a fellow reefer out.

At this point, knowing that I had some pending maintenance on the EcoWheel I decided to make the best of things and pass the time draining, disassembling and removing the filter box. I then placed the wheel itself in a Rubbermaid trashcan filled with water from the tank. Around 4pm Wednesday evening Morgan called back to advise he could not locate any spare pumps. However, he did mention that he had rebuild kits on order and they should be there in a week or two.

First thing Thursday Morning I got on the Internet and checked out Aquatic Eco-Systems looking for any kind of pump that might work. I hit pay dirt as they carry the Sweetwater line of linear diaphragm pumps that appear to be mechanically similar to the one supplied by Aquatic Engineers.

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/21789/cid/3844

After looking at the output numbers I selected model # SL170 and had it FedEx’d next day air. Cost was $626.00 with an additional $90.00-something for overnight delivery. I crossed my fingers and went back to working on the tank. The major project of the hour consisted of cutting ¾” off the bottom of the filter riser box to try and compensate for my reef tank settling somewhat lower than the rest of the system. An hour or so later mission accomplished and the filter box was set back in place sans the wheel which was still soaking in the trashcan. Later that evening I also performed a 10% H20 change and surprisingly everything still looked OK

Friday around noon there was a knock on my door and much to my surprise I was greeted by a FedEx driver asking me to sign for a delivery. Amazingly, a mere 24.5 hours after I hung up with Aquatic Eco-Systems I had the new pump in hand. Unfortunately, I was nowhere near ready to reassemble the filter.

It’s at this point that I need to mention that one of the nagging problems I had been dealing with recently was a systematic leaking of numerous bulkheads. Definitely not something I was planning to let go. So, while everything was apart I pretty much began implementing plan “B” which was the sealing of all Influent and Effluent boxes with 2-part liquid epoxy. (I had a bunch of the stuff left over from the pier piling fabrication) I literally mixed and then poured liquid epoxy resin into the bottom of all the boxes until the stuff was even with the top of the bulkheads. It was a relatively simple procedure that appears to have solved my problem quite nicely. Unfortunately, the draining, scraping/scrubbing and drying of the boxes prior to was anything but a simple procedure and accounted for about 90% of the necessary time and labor. (Something like 2 hours total per box)

As the last of the epoxy was hardening I began reassembling the EcoWheel, re-connecting the plumbing, and re-filling everything with new water. Somewhere around 9pm Friday evening I flicked the switch and literally held my breath as I listened to the pump come to life. Miraculously, the system fired up and began moving water. Even more amazing, the wheel not only began rotating, but also started moving at double the speed that it did before the crash. (2 rpm vs. 1 rpm)

However, even though everything is once again running smoothly, and as of this writing everything appears to have made it safely through the crisis, I need to mention a few crucial points of interest; the least of which being that I lost several established SPS colonies just prior to the pump failure. And up to this point I had no idea what the cause of my problem was. All I knew was that every two or three weeks another colony would begin a slow bleaching that would last anywhere from a few days to several weeks. The first to go were the extremely small or tightly branched Acro’s followed by my plating montiporas. Surprisingly, the more robust or open branched Acro’s, along with my Hydnophora, Pavonas, and cherished purple-tipped Acro’s were all unaffected. Looking back now, I’m starting to think that given the current pump failure I was probably experiencing a reduction in pump performance prior to the failure, but didn’t notice it because it was occurring over an extended period of time.

So, as much as it pains me to say this, I just ordered a pair or Tunze Turbelle 6000’s, the matching electronic controller, the photocell module, and a pair of mounting magnets. Hopefully, if all goes well they will be installed sometime next week. I’m doing this not because I have lost hope in the merits of the EcoWheel, it’s just that I think it comes up a bit short on water movement if you have a somewhat larger tank and intend to stock heavy on the SPS end of the animal spectrum. Also, given that this system was originally designed in the mid 90’s the thinking at that time towards water movement was somewhat different than it is today. I still have no doubt that if you intend to keep softies or LPS it will serve you well for many years and meet your needs day in and day out. I’m just choosing to hedge my bet with some accessory water movement given the likely hood of another pump failure.

So what’s the morale to the story sports fans?

1. Have a back up plan and be prepared for the absolute worst-case scenario. This means stocking a spare pump or pump rebuild kit, spare light bulbs, multiple gallons of makeup water, spare powerheads, etc.

2. Don’t allow yourself to become complacent in your hobby.

3. My experience (and that of several others) has shown that you’re not going to be able to count on Aquatic Engineers to get back to you in what I would consider a timely manner, so be prepared to go it on your own. (Note: Chris did call me back and leave a message Friday morning apologizing for the delay in getting back to me and letting me know if I hadn’t already found an alternative solution to give him a call. I can’t remember what his reason was for the delay because at that point it no longer mattered to me. I just can’t help but wonder if he can now be reached at extension #4 on their handy dandy automated phone system who is at extensions #1-#3 and why couldn’t they call me back?)

4. With regard to item #3 above don’t sweat it because with the exception of the pump, light bulb and or lighting unit itself there is very little you would need A.E.’s help with. The filter assembly is built like a tank and in my experience there is little or nothing that would need to be replaced. (I did notice I had a bit of scoring on the bearing shafts, which I am guessing, came from my use of sugar sized sand, but I was able to polish them out with some abrasive pads and a Dremel motor tool. Otherwise everything is still in tip-top shape.

5. The life span of the EcoWheel pump appears to be in the neighborhood of 2 years, give or take.

6. There may be a question of decreased performance and subsequently, decreased water flow, as the pump nears the end of it’s lifespan.

7. The Sweetwater II #SL170 appears to be a suitable replacement pump. Although, about 25% larger, it seems to put out about the same amount of performance at a decibel level equivalent to it’s predecessor and carries a rating of approximately 3 years of service. Rebuild kits are also available.

8. Inland Aquatics should have EcoWheel air pump rebuild kits available very shortly.

9. You may need to investigate the use of accessory powerheads depending on the type of animals you wish to keep.

10. Keep at least one spare standard size plastic trash can on hand at all times because the algae wheel will fit nicely in one allowing you to keep everything wet for however long you may have the system apart.

11. Leaky bulkheads are not the end of the world if you can find some 2-part resin and are willing to spend an afternoon doing a bit of work.

12. Aquatic Eco-Systems are very cool people to do business with.

13. And lastly, spend as much time with your loved ones while you can.

Happy reefing

.…Brett

[salty joe]

thanks, Brett. very nice ending to your post. sorry for your recent grief.

[matt & pam]

Brett, That explains why you needed a day or two to respond. I guess I better start by ordering the pump rebuild kit right now. I wonder if there is a way to gauge what the flow rate is out of the eco-wheel so you would be able to gauge performance of the air pump?

I think if I ever need assistance with my eco-wheel, I'll either try RC or perhaps contact or inland aquatics or Mission Pet Mart in KC. I don't know if Mission Pet Mart has spare pumps, but at least they do have a method for contacting Chris.

Sorry for your losses.

Matt...

[piercho]

Brett,

sorry for your personal loss, and the headache of recovering from the pump casualty.

You may be able to improve the reliability of these type pumps by pre-filtering them with a small, 3M Filtrete Ultra Allergen HEPA air filters. These remove particulate in the 1 - 0.3 micron range and are available at Lowes/HD. Of course, you'd have to enclose the pump and pull the air intake through the HEPA filter. I use a HEPA filter for my MEDO AC02s. After the 1st year of service I took them apart for inspection and found them to be very clean, and the MEDO filter was clean and did not need replacing. Since you are moving just a few CFM through the Filtrete filter, it will last years maybe decades.

I've had good luck with my MEDO AC602s (prefiltered) and I can recommend the Medo AC-series for this type service. If you are a diligent shopper on eBay you can sometimes get good deals on slightly used ones and even new ones. These will likely be in the 1-2 CFM range, not as big as what you are using. And they'll be noisier as they have no noise-dampening casing. But maybe for a back-up pump that does not break the bank...

I know you aren't looking for advise after-the-fact, but maybe someone else using air can use it. Once again, sorry for your troubles.

[Putawaywet]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and kind words. I guess there is some truth to what they say about the stuff that doesn't kill you making you stronger.

Howard, thanks for bringing up the Medo's... now that you have jogged my memory I vaguely remember discussions on those some time back.

Obviously, everyone will have to go with what they think will work best for them with regard to both performance and price. At the very least having a few options to choose from certainly won't hurt. Although, it sure would help if these air pumps didn't require you to take out a second mortgage to get your hands on one.

Caevan, Since you seem to be the only one who has had to deal with a rebuld kit would you mind sharing with the rest of us how difficult it is to do or what is actually involved in the process?

Brett

[caevan]

Firstly Brett I am sorry for your loss.

Replacing the diaphragms is a farly simple task.

Firstly I am asuming this is the pump you are using

http://www.greatsagehabibi.com/images/airPump.jpg

This is a Thomas air pump Model 5120S

This is the Thomas web site http://www.rtpumps.com/

The pump is actually made in Japan by Yasunaga Air Pump Company

http://www.fine-yasunaga.co.jp/english/home/environ/index.htm

I purchased my pump directly from the local Australian Thomas distributor for
AUD$405.00 =USD$303.00

To rebuild the pump remember to leave the pump to cool before working on it, as the internals can be quite hot.

You need to open the unit and remove the housing lid. You should see a plastic diaphragm housing screwed to either side of a metal box which houses the acutator.

The rebuild kit should come with two diapragms with the plastic housing.

Replace one diaphragm and housing at a time.

Unscrew the the first housing and removing the rubber hose that is attached to it. This will expose the diaphrgam which is attached to the acutator with a small nut, before removing the nut note how much of the acutator thread is protruding from the nut, when attaching the new diaphragm I would not screw the nut in any further than it previously was.

Allign the new diaphragm onto the actutator and scure it with the nut.

Screw on the appropriate new housing (from memory they are marked and left and right) and reattach the rubber hose.

No do the other side.

The rebuild kit also comes with a rectangular black piece of material the same size as the base of the pump.

The acutator box and diaphragm housing sits on a flat metal plate which is attached by a number of screws to the base of the pump.

Remove the screws and lift the metal plate from the base, you may need to us a flat blade screwdriver to prise it apart, it should not require a lot of force, if it does you may have missed a screw.

With the base exposed, you will find it is covered with a similar black material to the one in the rebuild kit, except after a few years of operation it has become stiff and brittle and next to impossible to remove. This is supposed to be some sort of filter.

Remove the black material, this can be quite time consuming,as you will find it will be quite brittle and attached to the base in places. I had to scrape some it off.
I would then thoroughly clean and vacuum the base before replacing the new black material( it is quite easy to allign in place) and screwing the metal plate back.

Before replacing the pump lid, look at the top of the metal box housing the acutator, in the center there should be a small plastic disc with a slot which would take a flat blade screw driver. This is the safety switch, when the pump fails the switch may be thrown in the off position, double check it is in the on position before replacing the lid.

If all goes well turn the power on to the pump and it should start. If it does not come on double check the safety switch.

[Putawaywet]

Awesome info Caevan, that's definitely worth saving for a rainy day. Appreciate you taking the time to write that up.

Brett

[matt & pam]

Got a quote on the rebuild kit, $105.00 Small price when you consider the consequences.

[Putawaywet]

Matt was that quote from Morgan at or From Chris at A.E.? For some reason I had it in my memory that those kits were like $150.00 so that's a better price than I was expecting

On a side note, when I was speaking to Morgan he kept talking about the algae seed screens. I think he had me confused with someone else. You perhaps?

Brett

[matt & pam]

Yeah, that's me he was probably referring to. I'm still fooling around with my temp problem. I moved a fan directly under the lights, and set my neptune controller to shut off lights if the temp > 81 - 81.5 degrees. Lights are still going off. PITA. I've ordered a venting kit for the lumenarc hoods, should have them by next week. Basically I'll seal in the base of the lights with glass, then attach two adapters onto the top portion of the hoods. I'll daisy chain the lights together and blow and suck the heat hopefully right out the house.

Once that heat is settled, i'll be ordering screens from Morgan. I was told not to worry about a seed screen from the store in KC, they recommended just heavily stock the tank and it will grow. I just don't want to go to fast and risk losing livestock though.

As far as the pump kits, I contacted the company Caevan listed above. It took them a day to get back, but they have the kits in stock in a Wisconsin plant. You can find a local dealer from their webpage, and they'll look up the rebuild kit for you.

Matt

[Putawaywet]

The whole seed screen thing is kinda a catch 22. If the tank is not stocked there won't be enough organics to kick start the algae and it will be a slow grow until it gets a foot hold. And if there is no algae you have to go slower stocking the tank.

I'm perplexed by your heat issue though because I've haven't encountered anything like you describe.

My current mid-day lighting consists of:

2x 250w DE Reef Optix III pendants
4x 54w T5's overdriven on an IceCap ballast
1x 70w IceCap MH Spot pendant
2x 13w PC's

Ventilation is a pair of Orion fans blowing into one end of the reef canopy at something like 80cfm each. Then directly above each ROIII, as well as above the spot pendant, I have a pair of 5" circular vents cut into the top of the canopies to allow heat to vent upwards. That's pretty much it.

So far the system runs about 1 degree over ambient air in the am, and 2 degrees in the pm. With the current summer heat I have the AC set to 79 which puts the tanks at 80/81 from morning to night.

Wish I had some additional insight for you.

Brett

[matt & pam]

Well one problem with my heat probably has to do with the design of my hood, it's totally enclosed. I have basically a 2x8 hood, where a partition separates my eco-wheel from the tank. My venting system is three 6" holes on the back side, one as close to the top as possible (top of hole is 2 inches down) with a 110 CFM fan exhausting to the outdoors while the other two are evenly spaced and about 2 inches above the top of the tank. I have 2 x 50-60 CFM panaflo fans blowing in the tank from these other holes. (Good thing they are quiet).

Like I said before I did disconnect one fan and placed another inside the hood directly over the tank drain blowing across the water and under the lights.

The tank gets around 77.5 degrees just prior to the three halogens coming on. One thing I haven't done is move a fan under the power compacts for the eco-wheel. I wouldn't call the area above the eco-wheel air tight, some light escapes into the tank at night which I'll remedy soon. I have a 110 volt fan that came with the eco-wheel hood I'll have to move down but I'm fairly tight for space above the eco-wheel so I'm not sure how I'll do that. I might just cut a hole in the top of the hood and blow in.

Are your T5s as cool as they say? I don't have actinic supplementation yet, and obviously I'd rather stay away from the VHO heat (as well as shorter bulb lifetime).

Appreciate your insight and help.

Matt

[Putawaywet]

Originally posted by matt & pam
Are your T5s as cool as they say? I don't have actinic supplementation yet, and obviously I'd rather stay away from the VHO heat (as well as shorter bulb lifetime).


Not really. I'm overdriving mine so they are pretty warm. You really can't feel any radiant heat coming off of them per se, but as soon as you touch them you know they're there. About the same as when you put your hand on the air pump

Strange, my canopy is sealed front, end and back and only open on the end adjacent to the EcoWheel. The other canopy is sealed front, end and rear and open to the EcoWheel on the opposite side. So both hoods when combined with the center section form one giant hood if you will. The only exception is that the center section is open in the rear and of course the vents in the top.

My only guess is that with you using 3 bulbs to my 2 it must be just enough to bump those temps up.

Just for kicks why don't you try opening up the door to the cabinet with the airpump in it open and blow a fan on the pump for a couple days to see if that has any effect. With my cat taking a liking to the air pump cabinet my door is always open so the inside of that cabinet is relatively cool.

Brett

[matt & pam]

I'll give it a try.

[reefmaint]

im gonna make a varyation of these to go in my sump type thing.
cant deside on spraybar to power it or a mix of bubbles under it. or both anyways it will be small like 1.5 ft long and 8 inch diamiter. but hey better then just an empty spot

[Putawaywet]

Either way will probably work. I think rigging it so the overflow from the tank turned the wheel would be the way I would go.

Brett

[reefmaint]

yeah this thread has helped me alot in the design of new tank.

iv been quoting this page. sending ppl to it when they get bio and eco wheels mixed.


thank god for ppl with money to blow on a filter or i would never know about this

[tysfamily]

Hi, been meaning to jump in for sometime now. I have been reading about the Eco-Wheel ever sence FAMA did a story on it back in 98 to 2000 ( somewhere in there). I live in Indiana and have yet to see on in action. I have emailed AEI SEVERAL times over the past 2 years and have never ever gotten any reply, phons don't get an answer eather. I thought that maybe they went bellyup.
Does anyone know of a dealer in North Eastern Indiana, Southern Mich, or North Western Ohio? I'm at the point of just making my own, but I don't want to be busted for someone elses idea/product.
I still have to make my own corner box's. I have a 110 tall with drilled corners. It was set up for 1" bulkheads so I'm useing 1-1/4" PVC pipe fittings. Running the pipes together in the tank out both holes and running them together under the stand into a 2" fitting to make a circle. Both feeds will be in 1 corner in the overflow, the pipe runnig to the other corner will be silled through both box's. For now I will use a sump, but the setup can be changed over to the Eco-Wheel easy enough.
Before I heard about the Eco-Wheel, I was going to have an air-lift tube dump water in a bio-ball box which would dump into a teater toter scuber. The scuber would dump water in each end of the tank to make the waves. The Eco-Wheel seams like a much better idea than a scruber or dump box which sounds like a tolit flushing every few minutes.
Well anyway that was my 2 cents worth, lots of ideas just no contact from AEI, don't know of any dealers and no where to locate the parts. Thanks and keep the post going, this is the only place on the web that even talks or mentions the Eco-Wheel. If you look up Eco-Wheel, you Car/Truck rims or tours, and then there's you. Thanks for being there.

[matt & pam]

tysfamily,

I received my eco-wheel late last fall, just now getting it running. I'm still dealing with heat issues from my lights, hopefully I'll have that squared away soon.

Getting the eco-wheel is a pain. To be honest, I would have gone to a needlewheel skimmer/berlin system if I knew how long it takes to get the unit. I was in no rush for the system b/c it took me forever to build my stand, but > 6 months was excessive IMO. You might want to contact mission pet martin KC, which is where Chris Owen has contacts. He is the person who sells the units to the local stores, I assume he has marketing rights to the eco-wheel. His ability to communicate with customers does not come close to meeting my standards.

At any rate, the tanks I've seen on the system are very nice. I'm convinced that if set up properly you can have a low maintenance and very stable reef. The quality of construction is excellent. One thing to remember is the flow rate is only about 1200 gallons/hr, so if you desire additional flow you'll need alternative means.

I had to travel down to Nashville to get my tank, I'm in Lexington. Maybe you could talk with Morgan Lister at Inland Aquatics in Indiana. I'm not sure if he deals in eco-wheels, but I understand he runs them at his business and he is "the expert" in these systems.

Hope this helps.

Matt

[tysfamily]

I've been to Inland Aquatics several times, my mother lives about 10 minutes from them. The last time that I was there they were useing water screws and dump stations. That's where I came up with the idea for a T/T air lift dump station. They also deep sand beds. I'm useing a 4" NNR sand bed.
I just kinda figured that with AEI being made in Indiana that I would at the least received a return to my emails about a dealer. 2 years is a long time to not check their emails. I don't mean to be rude but the customer service needs some form of inprovements made. Unless the cost is high so that they only need to sale a few when ever they need the extra money.
If I had better pictures of the setup and the in/outlet box's I would just make my own, useing my idea's instead of theirs.
I have boughten 3 used water coolers to use the best one as a chiller. I'm cutting them down and removeing the copper feed water line and replaceing it with a SS line. Running the water through it the same as they do the reactor.
I've just never figured out how the control the top off replacement water. It would be a pain to have to shut it down everytime to check and replace the water.
As for coolinig I plan on useing Computer 12v fans and a conputer power supply. You can get some nice SS covers and filters for them cheeper than anyothers out there that I have looked at and priced.
Time really isn't the factor, I hace been colecting parts for over 3 years for my system and have spent 6 months building my stand and hood. Remodled a closet with air and vents for the torer, pump and chiller to control the heat build up.

[H20ENG]

I've been playing with air drive stuff alot lately. I think I have a good solution to the extra water movement plus still using the ecowheel, and still a non traumatic pumping system. Just working out the logistics of it, but I'm trying to run it very efficiently, without a larger pump than the ecowheel already requires.
I'm almost finished building the test tank, I'll let everyone know how it works, or if its a flop.
Chris

[matt & pam]

H20ENG, Look forward to your results.

Brett, Having a fan on the air pump did not alter the tank temp. My heat source is entirely related to the lights. I've got my lumenarc hoods vented now, the challenge is to get air circulating inside them. To vent, I cut 3" holes in two opposite sides of each hood. Then I attached a raised reflector piece on the inside of each hole, and a 4" vent tube on the outsides. I've connected everything together in a chain with aluminum ductwork. Unfortuantely the reflector pieces block the incoming air from my 5" panaflo. I basically put the entrance of the tube right in front of the fan, which almost takes up most of the fan space. However the 1/4 inch gap all the way around has a lot of air moving outside of the tube. I really can't feel much of an air current coming out of the first hood. And just to make me feel even better, my temp got up to 84 degrees (started at 78). My next step is to directly connect the vent to the fan and see what happens. Sure wish time was endless b/c I seem to run out of it way to fast. I found a beautiful blueberry gorgonian at a local store for next to nothing, but I'll just have to pass....

I did finally get a couple pieces of live rock on top of the base rock. Once I get this temp problem solved, I'll get some seed turf algae. Wonder what kind of miracle grow is needed to jump start the filter?

Matt

[Putawaywet]

It was worth a shot Matt, at least now you know venting the lights is a must do.
Don't sweat that blueberry gorg as I tried 2 and couldn't keep one w/out some kind of continuous supplemental feed.

Chris, can't wait to see what you come up with on your latest project. On a side note, we lost another one to Atlanta, when I get around to visiting it's going to be one giant reunion.

FWIW, I have one Tunze Stream in (2nd is on backorder) and water is really moving now. It doesn't exactly blend in, but it sure is getting the job done. I'm really liking the controller. The thing has several settings that will do everything from continous slow/fast pulsing up to alternating multiple pumps from side to side at pre-set intervals so you can simulate changing tidal currents. It even has a photocell that turns down the pumps at night and then ramps them back up the following morning.

Beyond that I removed that big rock with the yellow and orange zoos and replaced it with a really tall rock that I mounted a bunch of acros to. Still trying to eradicate the star polyps though - stubborn little buggers. Tank still looks good in spite of losing the airpump for half a week.

Brett

[caevan]

I am planning to do a major cleanup of the eco-wheel tank. Over the years quite a bit stuff (for want of a better word) as collected in the bio balls and the base of the tank. Approximately 2 thirds of the bio balls have sunk to the bottom, being weighed down by organisms growing on them.
I am unsure whther to just clean the bio balls and put them back or remove them all together.

[Putawaywet]

If you have any detectable levels of Nitrate then I say pull them.

Actually, I'm starting to think about the bioballs inside the wheel itself. I'm not registering any Nitrates but I'm wondering if the balls were gone would my surges be larger?

[Putawaywet]

change of subject here.....

Anyone have any suggestions for running carbon on an EcoWheel. A cannister filter is kind a pain to be doing all the time so I'm trying to think of a way that I can run carbon in the least labor intensive way.

About the only thing I can come up with is just hanging a bag in one of the influent boxes and going the passive flow-by route. But what I'd really like is some way to get the water to flow thru the carbon rather than around a suspended bag.

Brett

[caevan]

Originally posted by Putawaywet
If you have any detectable levels of Nitrate then I say pull them.

Actually, I'm starting to think about the bioballs inside the wheel itself. I'm not registering any Nitrates but I'm wondering if the balls were gone would my surges be larger?

Did you get an increase in bubbles in the tank when you removed them.

[matt & pam]

Caevan,
Why not put live rock rubble in your eco-wheel rather than the bioballs? I'm not using the bioballs, and I do have microbubbles in the tank.

Matt

[Putawaywet]

Originally posted by caevan
Did you get an increase in bubbles in the tank when you removed them.

Yes, there was an increase. It doesn't bother me all that much, but I could see it bothering someone else.

Brett

[H20ENG]

Brett,
I could see a home built canister plumbed inline with the airlift, with bypass valves and unions to disassemble for cleaning / carbon replacement. It could be made of 4" pipe, with 2" plumbing to maintain the flow you have with the airlift piping.
Otherwise, maybe some sort of tray to hold it in one of the boxes?

[matt & pam]

Brett,
What if you had a tray that fits on the tank outflow box that runs the length of the weir? Perhaps the entire outflow could be sent through carbon before it drains back to the eco-wheel. Wouldn't you think if you had carbon inline that ultimately that would impede airlift flow?

I suppose you could also T off the eco-wheel outflow, similar to feeding a calcium reactor, but utilize it for a fluidized carbon chamber instead (or in addition to calcium reactor)?


I'm still tinkering with airflow in the lights. Just broke a glass cover to the light hood, off the glass shop tomorrow. I did solve my problem with the fan blowing around the duct work. I took a PVC reducer 4" to 3". The outside diameter was just larger than 5" and the 3" section was 4" outside diameter. I shortened the entire piece by cutting off all but 1/2 inch on each side, then routed a 1/8" rabbit on the outside edge so it slid in tight on the 5" hole in my hood. The 4" dryer duct fits snug on the outside of the smaller side. Got lucky on that part, now quite enough to make up for the glass breaking everywhere, but lucky none the less.

Matt

[tysfamily]

On the subject of carbon, if someone with the system wanted to try here's an idea. Take it for what it's worth it's just a thought.
I see that the reactor is hooked to a "T" on the return line just under the filter. Install a larger "T" there and run a hose to a carbon reactor. The flow should be the same because the water is still going to the return chamber along with the surge water. It might slow it down a little because of the carbon restricting some flow but the carbon doesn't need to be in there 24/7, just long enough to do it's job.

[tysfamily]

I had read somewhere in here that someone had a question about the make up of the wheel. I did a lot of reading when it was first made about it.
The first wheels had a slot in them to pick up the water and dump it when the wheel turned. So not only was the filter full of water but the wheel would pick up about 3 to 4 gallons as it turned. When the wheel flipped it would dump the water back into the filter and make a larger wave, then pick up more and so forth. The wheel had a chamber the you could put Aragonite in. As the wheel turned the Aragonite would dissolve and help the system.
The wheels now, to my understanding have some form of sand in them. It being Aragonite or Oolitic or just common sand, I'm not sure of.
The wheel has a slot in it to pick up some water; the bio balls are in there to help it in two ways. “1” to defuse air bubbles and “2” because they float. The sand is opposite of the slot and the bio balls so that when it crosses a point at the top the weight rolls the wheel over because the slot is opposite of it. With out the sand changing the weight of the wheel at the top, the air form the airlift might just go into the open slot as it passes and the wheel could become stuck at that point every now and then. The sand is kind of like a flywheel on an engine of a car, it keeps the thing spinning. With the Bio Balls floating and the sand shifting there weight when the slot breaks the surface everything works. I not sure of all of this but just what I’ve come across over the years and it all makes sense.
Rick

[caevan]

It is actually designed like a water wheel and works much like one. the main difference being it is weighted like a fly wheel, which serves two purposes, one to slow down the rpm to between 1 and 4 rpm and the other to create the periodic wave from the influent box.

[Putawaywet]

tysfamily,

Your description is about 99% dead on..... my only disagreement is on the issue of the bioballs inside the wheel being some form of flotation. If that's the case then color me confused because they are barely a couple notches above neutral boyancy. At the time I removed the ones in the lower portion of the filter box they were no longer floating at all. I would think if they were looking for something to give the wheel an upward boost there are way better options out there. Heck, even ping-pong balls seem like they would have been a better choice.

Otherwise you are spot on. I've often wondered what is inside the sealed portion of the wheel, and sand (type really doesn't matter) seems to be the most obvious answer.

Brett

[Daoust]

Hi all,
I am very interested in this thread.
I love the idea of this complete eco friendly filter.
If I was to add up all I have spent on current filters/ pumps etc I am sure it would equal the cost of an Eco-wheel.

I was wondering what happened to all the pictures from the first few pages of the tank setup.

I would love to learn more about this filter system and how it works. Unfortunately I have not been able to see one local / close up.
and the Aquatic Engineers site did not have much to say about it.

I would love to see some setup pics if anybody could post / email them to me that would be great.

Thanks
D.

[Putawaywet]

The way I understand it, the powers that be discovered that pics that were being directly uploaded to threads without actually being hosted somewhere were causing technical problems with the site. So the decision was made to no longer allow it. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter large amounts of pics that were already there suddenly vanished.

I can certainly email you some if you send me a PM with your adress.

Brett

[Daoust]

DOH!..
Cool deal I thought I read that in this thread someplace as well.
ok so I am not a math wizard!
Pm incoming.
Thanks again
D.

[tysfamily]

I found a web sight with the air pump parts. It's at: http://www.septicsolutions.net/store/thomaslinear.htm
One kit is the 2 Diaphragms with Base Block, Chamber Block and air valves for $125.
The other kit is just the Diaphragm set for $79.95

Fits Thomas Linear Air Pump Models 5078S, 5080S, 5100S, & 5120S.
Also fits HALT50-0101.

Hope this helps anyone in need of a fix.

[matt & pam]

Brett,
What do you use for clean up crew in your reef? Matt

P.S. Still dealing with heat. It's 100% related to the MHs. I've got fans blowing in the tank and on water, I'm evaporating 4 gallons/day. I've ordered some orion AC fans, hopefully they will arrive soon and I'll have the lights vented completely outside the tank. As it stands now I'm sending room air into the lights, and it vents right near the exhaust port which vents outside. I did discover one potential problem using the bathroom vent setup. I didn't create a vent to bring in air - I read a post where air can be sucked in through the hot water heater exhaust. I'll need to speak to a HVAC person and figure how significant this problem is.

Matt

[Putawaywet]

Hi Matt,

At any given time time I keep a couple dozen of each blue and red leg hermits of various sizes.

A few dozen astrea snails, a dozen or so turbos, some nassarius, some bumblebees, and a couple three, four of those big teakwells.

I also have a couple tropical abalone.

2 pincushion urchins

My red and green serpent stars that have been with me since 1996/1997

Several hundred of those tiny snails that we all seem to have, as well as probably a thousand mini brittle stars.

That's about it. Not enough sand to sift in the reef tank so I keep no gobies or the like in that side.

Brett

[matt & pam]

Do the snails ever make it into the eco-wheel?

[tysfamily]

Good quistion, in Putawaywet's pictures there's a snail on the return gate. How about it Putawaywet, ever happen to you?

[Putawaywet]

Not the big ones, but those little micro ones that you get all over the tank, those make it into the EcoWheel. Along with the small brittle stars, limpits, aiptasia and an army of pods. However, the pods are all down in the bottom of the filter box, they seem to avoid the wheel itself.

Brett

[matt & pam]

Brett or Caevan,
I'm not running with bioballs, and I'm not thrilled about the bubbles in my tank. The difference between when the pump is off compared to when running is amazing. I'm almost tempted to put some live rock in the base of the eco-wheel chamber. Do you think this will help, or will this cause the same issue as the bioballs leading to nitrate production.

I thought about putting a screen in front of the weir, but I think the bubbles will just go over the top if it impedes flow any.

Did you ever decide on a way to introduce carbon?

Matt.

[caevan]

At the beginning of October, I emptied and cleaned the Eco-wheel tank, I was tempted to completely remove the bio balls but in the end I put back a quarter of the original amount. Initially I notices some micro bubbles coming through but now, I can't say there is any differance compared to having the orignal amount.

I should add even with the recommended amount of bio balls I never registered a nitrate reading with my Salifert test kit.

[glassbox-design]

tagging this one!

[matt & pam]

Brett and caevan,

How long did it take for the eco-wheel to mature with algea?

[caevan]

I had no access to seeded mats so I basically started of with a bare wheel. I started the tank from scratch so initially there was on ly sand in the tank which I seeded with live sand and a couple of pieces of live rock. After about 4 weeks of running like that I added the live rock.
It would have taked about 6 to 8 weeks to get a good covering of algae.

[matt & pam]

Wow. Mine has a way's to go. I've got 0 nitrates and 0 ammonia, (actually always have been 0 since beginning the tank). But the algea growth on 2/3 of the wheel isn't great. I think I just have too low of a bioload to support algea growth. I started advancing the feed rate and now I've got dinoflagelates on the sandbed. Hard to wait for the system to mature. I purchased a couple crown conch to help the sandbed, but at least one of them has a taste for snails.

[caevan]

You will find that about one third of the wheel will alway have much thicker growth than the other 2 thirds . this is because the wheel does not spin at a constant speed. The area of the wheel which is exposed to light at the time it sloes down to almost a stop or even stops will get the most algae growth as much as 2 to 3 time the growth found on the rest of the wheel.

WHen I added the new live rock I had a bit of die of which would have helped incease the nutrients in the tank at the time.

[matt & pam]

Learned about another pump system that can be used for an air lift. Apparently might be more efficient that the eco-wheel airlift system. Thought those following your thread might like to see this info. FWIW

http://www.geyserpump2.com/new_page_6.htm

[H20ENG]

I've seen that before. Its an RCSD in a can. I cant believe he got a patent on it!
RCSD power is the basis for the setup I've been working on- using its output to drive various processes at random flow.

[piercho]

RCSD in a can Thanks for the clue because that was killing me!!! I think I can figure out how it works now, maybe.

I read this yesterday, looked throught the web page, and put it out of my mind. Last night I was re-reading one of the first chapters of Dynamic Aquaria and Adey was describing this very device, or one with equivalent operation!! Now thats some weird serendipity. He went on to talk about adjusting the volume and frequency of the bursts to create a rocking action in the aquaria - like the Tunze Wavebox.

This really gets my juices flowing because I used a large RCSD (>10% tank volume) for a couple of years until we moved the tank to the new house. The RCSD never really impressed me that much for flow dynamic. But the air lift on the tank was plumbed in parallel to the RCSD, and turned off when the RCSD fired and ramped up as the RCSD filled. That created most of the dynamic flow in the tank. This device takes characteristics from both the RCSD and the air lift and combine them. Very, very cool. I don't know why anybody running a coral grow-out farm would use anything but this. Efficiency, dependability, gas exchange, and potential wave action, all in one package.

Theres going to be complications to using something like this in a show tank. My RCSD was on the other side of a wall with an enclosed exhaust, and you could still hear it fire. And that big burst of air/spray has to be dealt with.

But thanks very much for pointing it out!! I had written off air for the tank in this house we just moved into because of some design constraints where the tank will go. This device opens up possibilities I hadn't considered before. I don't usually get this juiced up over a gadget. Maybe this summer I need to embark on another air-device experiment in the backyard!

[ejmeier]

[i]This device takes characteristics from both the RCSD and the air lift and combine them. Very, very cool.[/B]
:lol: I just started a thread yesterday in the DIY forum called "Geyser pump: RCSD/airlift hybrid."
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=732025
How coincidental. :D Just thought I'd post the link in case anyone wants to discuss it over there w/o hijacking this thread. ;)

[H20ENG]

Do it Howard! Your setup has been a great inspiration.

Long ago, at their original website, they showed you step by step how the air and water flowed through the device. Shortly after (and I see they copied the same graphic on the new webpage), they blocked out the detail.

I have been working on some cool RCSD stuff, and when completed, will put it out here. One of which is using the RCSD to drive a RATS (rotating algal turf scrubber) that does not have the pocket in it.

Brett,
Where are the pics from the beginning?

[Putawaywet]

Wow! I drop off the grid for a bit and all you closet engineer types are still kicking around the ideas :)

Pics? Well, what's everyones interest? I have the ones from back when the cabinetry was being setup, early plumbing & electrical too. Also a nice pic of the safety loop built into piping that feeds air to the uplift. Speakup and I'll post it if I have it.

Otherwise....

The Sweetwater pump is working like a charm, no more probs with the wheel rotation, and all other mechanical components are still working great.

Except, for my IceCap 660 ballast powering my T5's. I lost that back in November and by the time I got it replaced I had a few more livestock losses. Nothing major, mostly the newer stuff I had picked up a couple months ealier.

On a side note, anyone care to speculate on the spontaneous dissapearance of my aptasia plague? I'm talking about the hundreds of the little buggers that had set up shop in the lower portions of the EcoWheel filter as well as the effluent boxes these last 2 years. They're all gone! Literally, poof! Just up and vanished over a period of a few weeks or so.

My Tunze pumps are doing great also, I set them up so they are right next to the influent boxes and are aimed in the same direction as the water entering the tank. I'm using interval #2 with a 6 hour alternating duration. Meaning, 1 pump pulses on/off for 6 hours, then gives it up to the other which does that same in reverse. When my lights go out the photocell powers down the pumps to like 25% for the night.

Other than that, I should probably admit to being pretty unattentive with the tnak of late. I'm doing some heavy interior redecorating and my time is just stretched crazy thin. I'm literally just scraping the wheel, changing/adding water and walking away. On top of that, I've been feeding every other, or every 3rd day at best. Yet still, everything is holding up so it's proving to be a very forgiving system indeed. Asthetically speaking, it looks like crud, what with the algae on the acrylic sides and the salt creep around the top and such. But things are still growing and swimming.

[Putawaywet]

However, it's time that I break the news and let you all know that I have pretty much made the decision to shut this system down and move on to something else. This is a decision that has weighed heavily on me these last few months and I've have definitely done a lot of soul searching over the pros and cons of all the time/money/effort I currently have invested in this setup.

And please believe me when I say it has absolutely nothing to do with my becoming dissillusioned with my EcoWheel - it is purely a personal choice that I am making which will be coinciding with some other life changes coming down the line in the not so distant future.

One thing I've always regreted is not going bigger on the reef tank and the limitations of the 48" of length has always been nagging at me from the shadows. Also, as much as I enjoy my nice cabinetry, it's a LOT of wood... wood that suddenly isn't working real well with the direction of my remodel. Additionally, I really miss the open top tank I had before this one. The ease of getting your arm in/out of the tank on a tank that has no canopy is really addicting. As it stands now I either have to remove the canopy, or tuff it out and work around my lighting when I need to access the inside the tank.

So call me crazy (because no doubt I probably am) but I've decided that now would be the time if I was really going to do it. And given that the proposed new tank will be a room divider that will literally sit adjacent to the existing one I'll be able to keep this one up unitil the new one is finished. So, that will allow me to casually swap things over from old to new when the time comes. After that, this one will be dismantled and moved to the garage for temporary storage until said time that I can locate a buyer.

I'm still finalizing designs, but so far it's looking to be 300+ gals in a 7 foot open top room divider type setup. I'm even kicking around the idea of going all T5.... lot's, and lot's of T5 :D

Regards, Brett

[matt & pam]

Brett,

That's too bad your going to change systems. I've added a rio 1500 to my tank, I've directed the flow directly against the eco-wheel flow to cause more turbulence in the tank. I'm dealing with dinoflagellates which are a pain. I definitely regret using dry base rock, as I bet my issue wouldn't have been as big a deal if everything was live rock.

Let us know when you start the new system, I would like to follow your efforts as I have been learning alot from you/this thread. Thanks.

Matt

[Putawaywet]

Matt,

Any ideas where that rock came from? From the sound of things it very well could be leaching organics into your water.

Regarding this whole flow thing we've been discussing - I really think it's something that needs to be adressed by each owner on a case by case basis. Being a mid-90's design this system was engineered back in the day when tank turnover in the 10x-15x range was pretty standard. Obviously, that thinking has changed considerably in the last 10 years. On top of that, corals are constantly (hopefully) growing and taking up more space as the months go by so it's no surprise that flow adjustments or accomodations might need to be made.

As to this thread, I don't have any intentions of bailing out so feel free to keep asking questions if you have any. I also imagine I'll be starting a new thread on the new tank (I'll be sure to take lot's of pics) so no worries there. I keep trying to make myself feel better about all of this by concentrating on all the new ideas that I'll get to kick around and all the new skills I'll be putting to use. If nothing else, this project has been one great learning experience.

Brett

[matt & pam]

Brett,

I'm using reeferrocks as my base rock, I hope it is not part of the problem. Other than not coming with a live coating of stuff. I believe my problems are primarily from not maximizing calcium and dKH early in the start, and waiting for the wheel to mature. I'm very much a newbie, so hopefully things will improve. At this point, I feel like I've got a few more months of looking at this dinoflagellate outbreak unless a miracle occurs. I suppose if things don't clear up within then next few months, one additional change I'll make is to change 100% live rock. (Still premature at this point).

How much flow do you estimate now in your reef side with the additional pumps?

Matt

[piercho]

Matt,
try hunting through the Chemistry forum on dinoflagellates. You might try a multi-parameter search, using "Boomer" (not Bomber) in the user name, and go back a ways. My only advice is to keep your carbonate alk up higher than you might otherwise. The folklore is that higher carbonate alk helps retard dinos. The couple of times I've had some, spiking the limewater with vinegar to bump up alk and Ca++ did seem to knock them out almost immediately. The flip side of using organic carbon (vinegar) in the tank is it may encourage cyano, IMO.

Brett,
happy trails on the new design. I enjoyed this tank, and thought you did some interesting things with it. The quality of your plumbing and electrical work are very professional, and I learned quite a bit from the construction details. The low-light display fabrication was remarkable. Very much looking forward to what comes next.

[H20ENG]

So the cats out, eh?

Brett,
No doubt your new setup will look as primo as this one, or better. Let me know if you want to talk controls:)

[Putawaywet]

Matt, I'm using a pair of Tunze 6000's so it has to be easily 3x-4x over the stock flow. Strange that you are having probs with Reefer Rocks as that's who I used for my base rock and I had no probs at all. Keep the faith.

Howard, many thanks, it's always nice when your peers shoot you a compliment. God knows couple years back I barely knew how to spell hydrodynamics and now thanks to some of your posts I actually know a tiny bit about it.

Chris, Yes, I decided to do the deed. There's even a big gaping (well, at least 36" x 84") hunk of bare concrete surrounded by tile in my living room to prove it. I'll be back in touch in a couple months to talk controls. Right now I'm exploring options on stands and trying to find out how many arms and legs SeaClear wants for a tank with museum corners. Stand wise, a custom steel one skinned in wood has my attention.

Brett

[Konadog]

Brett, who are you looking at for the steel stand? I need a stand next month for my 225 and am thinking the same thing.

[atreis]

For a long time, Newport Aquarium (Newport is on the other side of the river from Cincinnati) had an EcoWheel tank in their reef room. I was just there this week and noticed it was gone. During the behind-the-scenes tour (my wife got me for Christmas) I noticed the EcoWheels sitting back there and asked them about them. They said they didn't really work very well. I didn't ask about specifics, just thought it was interesting.

[H20ENG]

I forgot you have a great controls guy right there! Konadog
Cant wait for the new setup!

[charles matthews]

I kept an EcoWheel for about three years. I also had a 75 gallon refugium plumbed into the system (this is a seven tank total system of 450 gallons; the EcoWheel is on a 120 that slowly recirculates into the rest of the system which has a skimmer and a three refugia).

I've recentlyh published photos of this observation in Reef Annual 2005. Basically, the Chaetomorpha refugium way outperformed the Ecowheel. I could not get any significant algae growth on the wheel, while the Chaetomorpha grew prolifically. Kent's iron and molybdenum helped the Chaeto but not the Wheel.

I think turf algae requires a closed substrate to do well- one that can trap bacteria and farm their CO2. With the wheel screen turning in the water, you just can't get much growth. Also, Chaeto is much more three dimensional, and apparently will grow on the small amount of light that penetrates the mass. Really, there is a HUGE outperformance by the Chaeto. Additionally, the surge didn't work.

I recently took out the wheel and filled the illuminated Wheel tank with a tumbling ball of Chaeo. It's growing like mad. I am thinking of going "bare bottom" in the tank, turning off the skimmer, and using the Chaeto alone. It's growing fabulously for me with the Kent addition.

I recommend considering using your old EcoWheel tanks as Chaeto refugia.

[Putawaywet]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6376347#post6376347 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Konadog
Brett, who are you looking at for the steel stand? I need a stand next month for my 225 and am thinking the same thing.

Ken I'm looking at possibly having www.socalcreations.com fab one for me. They're up around Montclair area I think, and if so, that's about as local as I think I'm going to get. I've already exchanged a few emails with Randy and plan to call him on Tues to talk specifics. They're a full service place so they can do tanks, sumps, stands... whatever.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6401744#post6401744 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by charles matthews
I kept an EcoWheel for about three years. I also had a 75 gallon refugium plumbed into the system (this is a seven tank total system of 450 gallons; the EcoWheel is on a 120 that slowly recirculates into the rest of the system which has a skimmer and a three refugia).

I've recentlyh published photos of this observation in Reef Annual 2005. Basically, the Chaetomorpha refugium way outperformed the Ecowheel. I could not get any significant algae growth on the wheel, while the Chaetomorpha grew prolifically. Kent's iron and molybdenum helped the Chaeto but not the Wheel.

I think turf algae requires a closed substrate to do well- one that can trap bacteria and farm their CO2. With the wheel screen turning in the water, you just can't get much growth. Also, Chaeto is much more three dimensional, and apparently will grow on the small amount of light that penetrates the mass. Really, there is a HUGE outperformance by the Chaeto. Additionally, the surge didn't work.

I recently took out the wheel and filled the illuminated Wheel tank with a tumbling ball of Chaeo. It's growing like mad. I am thinking of going "bare bottom" in the tank, turning off the skimmer, and using the Chaeto alone. It's growing fabulously for me with the Kent addition.

I recommend considering using your old EcoWheel tanks as Chaeto refugia.

Hey Chip, how's it going? I haven't spoken to you since my system was still on a freight truck. Interesting observations you have made on the difference in performance. How's you work going with Dendro's?

Brett

[Konadog]

Brett, I have also spoken with Randy. I found that my welder at work was looking for some "fill work" and he said he would make my stand. Randy is a great guy and has been answering any questions I had about making the stand.

I gota hand it to guys that will help you even though they aren’t making my stand, they do some quality work over their.

[matt & pam]

Brett and others,

One of the local sellers here suggested that I lower the salinity down to 1.017 or so in order to get rid of dinoflagellates I've been dealing. I'm not quite ready for this, but I do wonder if this would have a negative impact on the algea scrubber as well. Any thoughts?

Matt

[caevan]

Does anyone have any ideas on the best way to plumb in a chiller with the eco-wheel system.

Originally I was told to use a drop in coil chiller, but these are not readily available in Australia, so I need to somehow plumb in an inline unit.

Currenly I use a room air conditioner to keep the tank cool in summer, but I am thinking it would be more efficient to use a chiller.

Any ideas would be great.

[H20ENG]

Pretty tough using only an airlift for circulation. If you modified the evaporator barrel plumbing up to the 2" size of the airlift / tank suction line, it'd work. Put the chiller between the tank suction and the airlift injection point.
Do not try to use the airlift with the small 3/4 or 1" fittings, it could freeze up the evaporator, or at minimum, be very inefficient.
Otherwise you will need a water pump, which somewhat negates the benefits of the pumpless ecowheel (Depending on who you talk to...).
HTH
Chris

[simple_joe]

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770Piling-003.jpg

Hello Brett,

I finally received my piling:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/simple_joe/P9010120.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/simple_joe/P9020128.jpg

Thank you for all your help.

Regards,

Joseph

[Putawaywet]

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Glad I could be of help.

Brett

[Konadog]

Very nice Joseph :thumbsup:

Brett, any pictures of the new tank and stand??? ;)

[Putawaywet]

Well..... I do have a few of the stand and sump. Electrical is in.

No tank though, trying to recharge the bank account for my skimmer.

Here's a pic of progress so far to tide you over :D

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770DSCF0052a.jpg

Brett

[Putawaywet]

Joseph,

I'm envisioning your piling with stuff growing all over it and I think it's going to look really sharp! Is that DLM's work?

Brett

[simple_joe]

Brett,

Thank you for the complement. You and Ken have really been helpful. This is actually made by a fabricator in Michigan ( www.thenaturefactory.com )

Do you still have your IceCap Pendant Spotlight? Will you be using it on your new set-up? I have one and would like to get another. Thanks.

Joseph

[Putawaywet]

OK, no more brain teasers. Here's some pics of what I really have so far:

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770DSCF0042a.jpg

Here is the layout of the stand that the guys are SoCal Creations fabricated for me.

The black coating is spray-on Linex or "Kona-Coat" as I have so affectionately named it in honor of Ken here. Simply amazing stuff!

I had Randy at SoCal add some 1x2's around the perimeter of the base and after the Linex was sprayed on everything is sealed tight.

I get 3 seperate compartments, waterproof coating, sound deadening, and a built-in catch basin.....

Thanks Ken for the great idea.

[Putawaywet]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7227483#post7227483 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by simple_joe
Brett,

Do you still have your IceCap Pendant Spotlight? Will you be using it on your new set-up? I have one and would like to get another. Thanks.

Joseph

Why yes I do. A little surface rust on the stainless pendant but otherwise in great shape. It can be yours with the right financing :D

Seriously, shoot me a PM and we'll talk more.

Brett

[Putawaywet]

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770DSCF0067a.jpg

The underside of the top is spray-coated as well, but left temporarily removeable so I don't bust my back installing all the equipment like I did on the last project.

Eventually, I'm having a custom peice of granite made for the top.

[Putawaywet]

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770DSCF0218a.jpg

Electrical is mostly Carlon stuff mixed with some sch80 gry fittings I had left over. Moisture resistant housings contain individual GFCI's.

Just visible is my sump, also made by the guys at SoCal. All black acrylic, including 4 black acrylic lids. The front is clear, but I requested a black overlay with cutouts for viewing windows. No doubt Steve and Randy are convinced I'm whacked, I'm pretty sure they've started disguising their voices whenever I call :D

The sump is pretty straight forward, a seperate section for a fuge or hospital tank, an area for filter socks or filter pads, and then some baffles before the return. The rest is just open area for added water volume.

[Putawaywet]

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/23770DSCF0225a.jpg

More electrical shots.

A Deltec AP702 is scheduled to sit front and center. Right between the switch boxes. I'm going with an external horizontal overflow so it should be almost a straight shot to gavity feed the skimer. Return pump will be behind the skimmer.

I'm also going with some of the new Vortec pumps so I'm thinking the equipment for that might be mounted on the dividers above the return pump.

Brett

[simple_joe]

Brett,

Sent you an e-mail regarding the pendant.

Just when I tought I was getting close, Brett moves the bar even higher with this new set-up. Awesome craftmanship is an understatement.

We now have two new reef terms:

"Kona-Coat"
"PAW-Pilings"
( PutAwayWet = PAW )

Joseph

[Putawaywet]

Thanks joe.

On a side note... who's the hottie in your gallery? If she's related to you then all I have to say is....

My Gawd man, for crying out loud find a way to work her into more of your tank shots :D

Inspiration! that's what this hobby needs... more inspiration!!!

Brett

[simple_joe]

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/32251otoha_001.jpg

Otoha is a Japanese swimsuit model. Google her for more images.

[Konadog]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7227636#post7227636 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Putawaywet
The black coating is spray-on Linex or "Kona-Coat" as I have so affectionately named it in honor of Ken here. Simply amazing stuff! ....

...Thanks Ken for the great idea. You guys crack me up!

Brett, the whole think looks great. Now I wish I would have had my woodwork done beforehand, that's a great idea!

[Putawaywet]

Greetings all,

I decided to go ahead and start a new thread following the progress of the new tank for those that might have more time on their hands than they know what to do with.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=856714

I'll continue to tag along on this thread in case any questions or problems come up in the short term. However, I will no longer be posting any updates as things are now moving in a different direction for me.

I do want to say thank you to everyone for all the great discussions and feedback these last couple of years - I had a lot of fun sharing all the great stuff I learned along the way.

Indeed, tis a great hobby we share. And an even greater group of people we share it with!

Brett

[matt & pam]

Brett,

Hoping you still check this page. I've had a bit of a problem with my eco-wheel lately. My top off pump went out, (naturally when I left for a 6 six meeting), and with the resulting effects that the eco-wheel didn't turn and the top 5 or 6 fins dried out. So I've fixed the water level situation, but now the eco-wheel won't turn. At first I thought it was b/c the air pump was going or something, and I even changed the diaphragms. Didn't help. I scraped a bunch of algae off the opposite side to try and even out the weight. Didn't help. Not sure what else I can do.

I tried adding weight to the bare side in the form of a pvc pipe filled with water, that made it even worse. Not sure what else to do.

Over the past week, I've had to run the water level higher than ever just to keep it moving, but that no longer is helping (unless I add a couple inches to my tank LOL).

Any suggestions?

Matt

[salty joe]

You might have to pull the wheel to inspect the bearings.

[matt & pam]

I pulled the wheel, and the "bearings" did have a coating of coraline algae. I've cleaned them up, tried the eco-wheel again, and no luck. I haven't physically removed the white teflon type material that the wheel turns on, but I did remove the coraline material as much as possible.

Any other suggestions?

I could completely scrape the wheel, but I'm hesitant to have that much of a setback with my filtration.

As of now, I've got the eco-wheel sitting in a trash can with salt water and a pump.

[salty joe]

Any grooving or out of round on bearings or shaft?

[salty joe]

Also, when I suggested pulling the wheel, I meant disassembly- not just removing the wheel mechanism from the tank.

[Putawaywet]

Hey Matt,

I've never really experienced a problem like you describe. I've had a constant fight with my water level to keep the wheel turning, but if I raise the level enough the wheel will turn on it's own.

In lieu of any other ideas I'd have to agree with Joe and suggest you dissassemble the bearings and inspect for wear. Perhaps there is piece of sand or similar that had worked it's way into the material.

One thing I have found is that in spite of the claims it takes very little effort to stop my wheel's rotation on the upstroke. It's been a pain since day one because to keep it turning reliably the water level in the tank cannot vary more than a 1/4".

Best of luck
Brett

[matt & pam]

Well, I took out the wheel, and the white bearings and cleaned them up as best I could. I also decided to scrape off a bunch of algea from the "heavy" side. It's now turning again, about 1.5 - 2 revolutions per minute.

The bearings and shaft look pretty much like new after I scraped off the calcium deposits. Not scoring or such.

Brett, not sure if you could check your wheel, but does the bioballs inside the wheel move any if you shake the wheel? I'm trying to determine if they might be off balance or something (although I doubt it since my wheel is now turning again).

Salty joe, Is there anything else that can be taken apart on the wheel? I don't see how anything else comes apart.

Thanks everyone for advice.

[salty joe]

If I remember correctly, it only takes the removal of four screws to split the case that houses the wheel. That would be the only way to get a good look at the journal and bearing surfaces. If that's already been done and everything looks OK, I'm out of ideas.

[matt & pam]

It's been running for the afternoon without difficulty. My unit is without any screws on the external surfaces. Perhaps inside the open cavity, which I didn't notice. At this point, I'm leaving it alone until next year.

Glad I didn't have to pop for a replacement pump, but now that I said that I'll probably need one shortly. (I still have replacement diaphragms).

[caevan]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8771785#post8771785 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by matt & pam
It's been running for the afternoon without difficulty. My unit is without any screws on the external surfaces. Perhaps inside the open cavity, which I didn't notice. At this point, I'm leaving it alone until next year.

Glad I didn't have to pop for a replacement pump, but now that I said that I'll probably need one shortly. (I still have replacement diaphragms).

Hi I recently replaced the air blower on my eco-wheel with one of these
http://www.medousa.com/en/product/product_spec.asp?ID=29&prd_ln=lpb

It works on a different principle, with nothing to wear, at least not as quikly as the diaphragms.
Only differance I found is it is longer than the equicvalent diaphragm blower.

[Putawaywet]

Matt,

I know you have already gone thru this, but for the sake of others... the wheel should be mounted inside it's own PVC frame. Dissassembly is pretty straight forward: You remove the wheel and frame assembly from the filter housing as one unit. You should then be able to see 8 nylon screws going into the side plates, 4 on each side - they thread in thru the square side plates and then into the connecting rods. After you remove the screws you will probably need to seperate the side plates from the rods with a hammer as the rods are counter sunk about 1/8" into the side plates. (Built like a tank the thing is!) After you have the side plates off you can then access the bearing bosses - one on each side. That should be all there is: 2 side plates, 4 rods, 2 bearings, 4 screws and the wheel.

As for the bioballs they do tumble around pretty good. As the wheel comes over the top you can here them shifting around inside.

I suspect you are now good to go as 2rpm is is about the max you want.

Sit back and enjoy a beer as you are now a certified EcoWheel technician !

Happy reefing

Brett

[matt & pam]

I thought I was crazy, not being able to see the nylon screws. Then I checked the aquatic engineers web site. My eco-wheel must be a different version than yours. It does not have a PVC frame holding onto the axle of the wheel. My wheel has a center axle that fits into grooves mounted directly onto the acrylic chamber. The net result is the same, I bearings are clean again.

[Putawaywet]

Very interesting.

Wonder if there is any reason behind the differences or if it's just a matter of they figured out they really didn't need the frame anymore?

Brett

[piercho]

IME/IMO the MEDO linear piston pump Cavean recommends is an excellent one for air applications of this type. I have AC-series MEDO pumps which are noisier and a little less efficient than the LA-series Cavean linked, but the AC are also very good pumps and sometimes available at discounted prices (check eBay). If the pump was going in the same room as the tank I do think that I'd choose the LA due to the lower noise level.

The linear piston rides a cushion of air in the compression cylinder and this is what makes mechanical wear on linear piston pumps so low. Just like a car piston, even small solid particles that makes it into the cylinder will wear the piston. The AC-series have a doughnut filter on the input that is integral to the pump to catch this particulate, but the net surface area of the filter is fairly low so it won't last that long. I have found it useful to prefilter the air input with a 3M Filtrete Ultra Allergen furnace filter. (http://www.3m.com/us/home_leisure/filtrete/411_ultra.html) This makes the integral Medo filter redundant, and allowed me to run the pumps for years with no required maintenance. As an added bonus, I have used KW diffusors (box-construction basswood diffusors for large air-powered skimmers) for over 12 months which is about 3 times longer than most people report. I attribute this to the reduction in fine particulate clogging the basswood pores.