AquaCare ACF1000V review

[roidan]

picture of bubbles near top of chamber at 360l/hr of air suction

[roidan]

Chamber bubble density

The picture shows the 2 different pumps being used.

The eheim 1262 is used to overdrive the skimmer beyond manufacturer's recommendations. The sicce extrema is used to drive the skimmer around manufacturer's recommendations.

Blue region denotes relatively high bubble density. Green region denotes medium bubble density. Red region denotes very low bubble density.

First we look at the chamber on the left (eheim 1262), for almost the top 2/3 of the chamber, bubble density is rather dense but i noted that there is a great deal of turbulence which may actually work against the skimmer.

Meanwhile, the bottom 1/3 green region has a medium bubble density. While this helps to make full use of the chamber by accomodating as many bubbles as possible, there is a great deal of microbubbles exiting the skimmer.

Next, we look at the chamber on the right (sicce extrema), this is actually close to the scenario recommended by the manufacturer (220l/hr of air), whereby the venturi draws 240l/hr of air.

only the top 1/3 of the chamber are dense fine bubbles, the lack of serious turbulence here plays a part in achieving seemingly denser and finer bubbles as compared to the overdriven chamber.

the middle green portion starts losing bubble density and by the time you get to the bottom 1/3 of the chamber.....bubble density falls drastically as you can almost look through the chamber to the inner tube. But this actually means that you have much less microbubbles escaping the skimmer and probably what the manufacturer wanted and designed for.

As such, if we use the skimmer with the pump and matching water/air flow rate as recommended by the manufacturer, we are actually only using about 1/3 of the 27cm tall reaction chamber that is less than 4inches wide. This is seriously the weakness of the skimmer that I see at this point in time. In terms of bubble fineness and absolute amount of bubbles....it loses out considerably to skimmers out there that has similarly fine bubbles that fully packs their much wider, taller and bigger reaction chambers.

Iregardless of how effective this top 1/3 layer of bubbles are, it is a serious handicap of this skimmer if you are thinking of using it for large water systems or heavy load systems. But that said, it should be able to perform for systems without heavy loads or large water volumes.

[roidan]

Pricewise may not be accurate but i am converting from this webstore:

http://www.sewatec.de/Protein_Skimmers/Aqu...95a387d064d334f

1000V = 399 euro = 867.232 SGD (1 EUR = 2.17373 SGD)

2000V = 566 euro = 1,230.21 SGD

3000V = 677 euro = 1,471.14 SGD

With these prices, the range seems to be rather expensive for casual hobbyists. At this price range of SGD800plus to SGD 1.5k, a reefer would be spoilt for choice over other skimmers that offer similar sized fine bubbles and yet bigger reaction chambers.

While it is definitely better built and designed than weipro equivalents, one may be hardpressed to fork out this amount when there are other options around the same price range which i said earlier that would offer similar if not better skimming performance.

[roidan]

overdriven by eheim 1262 still could not coax it to foam in my system.

will be bringing the skimmer over to the FOWLR for testing.

[roidan]

as mentioned earlier, when overdriven by 1262....top 2/3 of the chamber is dense and relatively fine bubbles....but this setting churns out alot of microbubbles at the skimmer discharge point.

test on FOWLR with sicce extrema and then eheim 1262 and i will be done with this review

[roidan]

coming to 12hrs with the Aquacare in my 72 litre FOWLR, airflow maintained at a steady 240l/hr with the sicce extrema. Again no buildup of foam. Wonder issit my bioload is too low (3 fishes about 2.5inches long each)

Tried to feed a cube of mysis last night, as well as this morning, to coax a response from the skimmer but to no avail.

Last resort to check if the skimmer is working: I dripped some Seachem Clarity (Flocculent) into the tank and while the tankwater turned dirty-colour, viola, the skimmer kicked into action just as it did when faced with Bane's venom.

[roidan]

foaming after the flocculent is added.

[roidan]

movie clip of the foaming

(please wait for the whole movie to be downloaded before playing it back properly...otherwise the movie staggers)

MOV00847.MPG

[roidan]

Switching over to eheim 1262 at full 360l/hr of air,

the skimmer immediately starting overflowing. I had to turn off the pump, and empty the water in the collection cup back into the tank. I used the blue valve to restrict the full flow of the water into the skimmer and used it to adjust till i see the airflow at 4l/min (240l/hr) - no flooding at this setting.

So while 1262 seems too powerful for the skimmer, you can definitely tame it down via the blue valve supplied with the skimmer. The sicce extrema on the other hand, while working near the manufacturer's recommended settings, seems a tad too weak to push the skimmer a little harder.

One may wish to find a pump stronger than the extrema (so that you can push it alittle more) but weaker than 1262 (so that you do note waste electricity) and then use the blue valve to control the pump so that the skimmer does not overflow.

I shall be attaching this clip of the bubble chamber using the eheim 1262.....

and then another clip of the bubble chamber using the extrema.

MOV00863.MPG

[roidan]

the clip of bubble chamber density using sicce extrema (240l/hr of air)

can see alot of difference compared to the eheim 1262 drawing 360l/hr of air.

MOV00828.MPG

[roidan]

Brief conclusion of pumps used

Sicce Extrema [2500l/hr of water flow at 0 head]

+ working near manufacturer's settings

+ lower electrical consumption

+ no flooding risks

+ less microbubbles exiting skimmer

- seems abit slow/reluctant to foam up in this review, unless artifically coaxed

- only top 1/3 of chamber is filled with fine bubbles

Eheim 1262 [3600l/hr of water flow at 0 head]

+ able to overdrive the skimmer if needed

+ make full use of the reaction chamber

+ fiercer oxygenation of the water

- a real risk of overflooding

- may be a tad too turbulent for what the skimmer is designed for

- alot of microbubbles exiting skimmer

- higher electrical consumption

- heats up tank water if used insump

[roidan]

Final notes

This skimmer may be an end solution for those with moderate size and loading systems if this skimmer,together with other aspects of the system (LRs, DSBs and so on), gives the reefer the low residual nutrient environment that he sets out to achieve. How moderate, no one can seriously give an accurate answer just by throwing a number.

Some using this skimmer may find themselves stretched and have to deal with rising nutrient levels that the skimmer and other parts of the system cannot handle and thus have to find themselves back in the market again looking for yet another skimmer....

the manufacturer says it is good for up to 1000litres....but as with all manufacturers, he does not say that behind the 1000 litres of water...how much liverocks are there, how much sandbed and how deep it is, how many fishes are there and how big are they and how often are the feedings to the system and so on... All these are the open moving variables that will greatly affect the socalled numerical capacity of any skimmer.

That said, if one runs a relatively sterile reef in the first place, probably this skimmer would be even good enough for much more than 1000litres capacity in his application and he will be able to achieve a low nutrient reef. On the other hand if one runs a reef that churns up serious waste either due to heavy stocking, heavy feeding, very little nutrient reduction via LRs, DSB, macroalgae and so on, then this skimmer is probably not good enough for him for capacities much less than 1000litres.

I have tried to present an objective review to this skimmer and the fact that I am not closely associated to the forum officially, I will not be seen as passing negative comments because a non-sponsor is selling this product, neither do I wax lyricals over this product because a sponsor is selling this or I have under-the-table benefits if i do so.

Just a dark knight in his batcave doing his part for Gotham City.....

[huanjie]

Excellant review !

Very objective and neutral.

Thank you !

[yus75]

such a gd n clean thread......

how i wish i could do review on my berlin w mazzie injector powered by extrema

[SST Tang]

Hi Bro Roidan,

very please with your effort,

i having one of this skimmer,

using it insump, using a SUN SUN brand pump

spec is equilavant to 1260

will change to 1260 soon.

after going thru your review,

no regret on this skimmer.

there is one bad point of this skimmer is that

there isn't a outlet on the collecting cup,

so it a bit trouble to unscrew everytime if you need to empty the cup.

I drilled a hole on the side of the collecting cup,

and run a small pipe to a bottle.

Thks

[SST Tang]

during test run as tank not ready yet

skimmer on top of the tank,

pump is inside the tank