Skimz CR 1500

[shoelevy]

just acquired a new Skimz CR1500 by chipson from aquamarin

i like chipson, i like janet and steve and i like the CR, and hence my motivation to write the review (just kidding)

i hope as i write this review i can show the pros and cons along the way

personally, i like simple equipments, i had tried the korallin CR and ian's i-aquatic before but didn't like them much. NOT TO MEAN that they are not good, its just that i am a simple person who prefers simple equipment. the previoius 2 were abit too cheem for me

pls forgive me for the messy bakground

[shoelevy]

here u see some features of the CR

(top left)my personal favourite: needlevalve output for precise contrl of effluent drip rate

top right: the co2 counter, notice that the colour of the inlet is yellow instead of blue. i believe this was part of the design to let the user easily distinguish between gaseous and fluid in/outlets.

bottom left and right:the left photo shows the gap between the acrylic flanges being filled up by another piece of acrylic. i dunno what this improvement was for but perhaps its to make the reactor look nicer? i do not know. the right shows the gap in a beckett to accomodate for the similar o-ring design.

[shoelevy]

the base is large and everything is mounted on it, namely the 6" reaction chamber and the eheim 1250 recirculation pump

craftmanship is excellent.

the bottom pic shows 2 strips of soft i beleive some kind of polymer on which the eheim 1250 is mounted on. i believe its for vibration absorption to keep the pump running quietly.

2 thumbs up for such attention to nitty gritty stuff

[shoelevy]

pros: very simple design, plug and play, much attention paid to nitty gritty stuff, craftsmanship is good, relatively small, light, large base offers hugh stability, extremely simple to use

cons: there were some things i thought could be improved on.

1: lack of air bleeding. meaning when u first fill up the CR with water, there's bound to be bubbles trapped in the media and sponge. when the eheim kicks in, these bubbles start to collect at the top. but there's no air bleeding port to get rid of them. such air bleeding features are found in some other CR

solution: actually this isn't a very big prob as a valve can be installed at the top where the blue tube for recirculation of co2 is at and the air can be drained off. but if it can be incooperated into the design then save trouble la of manual bleeding la

2: recirculation pump is abit hard to dismantle for regular cleaning or even to clear the pump incase it gets choked from fine media particles. i faced this problem with both previous 2 CR i used so i thought this is quite an important point to note.

solution: u'd either haf to be very good with eheim pump design and know wat to do or else prevention must be taken. if using media that has small particles like rowalith, care must be taken not to fill it up too much, i filled the CR to about 1/2 full and no problems there! if using media with larger particles then no problems there!

[shoelevy]

lastly, regarding its internal capacity, i filled the CR about 1/2 full and that contains slightly more than 3kg of rowalith.

this guy according to what i know should be able to support up to 4feet sps tank. this remains to be seen as i proceed on with sps-ing my tank. but for now, i hope this review has helped those who are pondering whether its good.

any problems feel free to voice it here, i will try my best to answer.

also i hope to do further reviews as i start to tune it tomorrow, currently its still under ovenight leak test

[triggerfish]

fully agreed! previously was using Korallin and i dread to do regular maintenance as there were multiple steel nuts and screws to remove and it also same just with a circular base, without a rectangular base such as this Skimz. Not to mention for the former brand, the eheim pump is mounted on the top of the cylinder and hence made maintenace a nightmare!

switch to this Skimz half a year back and so far so good!

price wise it is definitely comparable than other similar capacity models in the market too

[Tigger]

Hi Shoe,

1. Does the CR comes with a pH probe mount?

2. Is this CR fluidising during operation?

3. Does the CR allows excess CO2 bleeding to occur?

4. Can u PM me the damage?

Thanks for sharing.

[shoelevy]

yo tigger,

1) the CR doesn't come with a ph probe mount BUT AM very smart, they've come up with a neat device to do that. lemme take a photo and post it later on.

2)the CR is fluidising, made possible with the eheim 1250 pump which only draws a low low 28W

3)this CR features co2 recirculation but in the event that excess co2 really builds up, unfortunately, this is one of the drawbacks i mentioned earlier. it doesn't have this co2 bleeding feature. but i figured out a simple method. somewhere in between tube which brings the co2 back for recirculation, a Y or T valve can be added in and turned on to release the excess co2. i haven't tried this method personally la but maybe i will pay the fish shop a visit later and try to see if this method works and maybe post it up here

4)pmed you!

[shoelevy]

ok tigger, here's a view of the smart thingee that AM came up with

on the left is a hole where the water output tubing goes and on the right is a while where the ph probe sits in nicely. water from the CR willl collect in this device and will flow out via another hole hence ensuring that your ph probe is always immersed in the effluent. what i like most is that it seats nicely on the sump's glass wall

[shoelevy]

here's another shot for an alternative view

[Tigger]

Thanks for sharing. Maybe u can do a review of the Ca and KH obtain when this until has run in. I suppose a fludusing CR is better than those non fludising ones.

[Melvyn Tan]

In all honesty i have never seen a "fluidising" CR ! will be glad if you can post the fluidising effect in this Skimz.

What i do know is that it takes a lot of force to fluidise the media in the CR, so i do not know how the effect will be in the fluidising + "jumping" media getting flowed into the pump !

Fluidising of rowaphos, yes the fine particles fluidised in the FR, but can't imagine the coarser materials fluidising within the CR.

[Tigger]

Bro MT,

Fludising allows better flow and prevent "channeling". As such, effeciency improves as compared to non fludising CR.

Too bad my CR does not allow fludising to occur.

Some of the local made CR have fludising function, saw it in action b4 at Iwarna. Also I saw for myself, Korallin 3000 series CR is fludising too.

[shoelevy]

In all honesty i have never seen a "fluidising" CR !  will be glad if you can post the fluidising effect in this Skimz. 

hey bro!

how r u man!

so long no see

still as hamsup as ever?

hahaha KIDDING La

ok i took a video of the fluidising of the rowalith media.

u need quicktime to view this. sorry ah but i filmed it with the camera held up so u haf to turn your head to see the CR upright

in any case, when i used the ian's CR also got the same fluidising leh.

then bro, i know u r using CR...lol, so yours no fluidising? wat CR u using?

but wat i wan to sae is i think it also depends on the media u use?

i'm not sure on this but i suppose if the media is heavier it doesn't fluidise. i only used rowalith before so...

100_1986.MOV

[Melvyn Tan]

hi bro still alive and kicking, how is the dream girl you met at Reborn, still 'beoing' her often? hahahha, my 'hamsup' will be activated only when you are around - because you have a strong influencing effect hehheheh, just joking...

Ok, thats quite a sight on the fluidising effect on CR. Do you have problems in the bubbling effect? ie. noticed the strong flow through of the media + co2 bubbling on the media resulting in the media floating off, now will this media float-off get recirculated to the pump?

[shoelevy]

very good question melvyn

first of all, i moved on leaw...the reborn girl i dun remember who leaw...haha

as for your next question, those bubbles u see is not the co2 becos i haven't start to release the co2 yet. those are the bubbles of air trapped in the media or sponge when the CR was filling up with water. the eheim was able to push them out and u see them bubbling up. there's no way of bleeding the air out as it was not part of the design of the CR but i noticed if u keep the pump running, the bubbles will come out through the water oulet. infact when i called AM they said that was the way to get rid of all the excess bubbles. just keep it running for a few hours can leaw.

as for kicking up the media and getting into the pump increasing the possibility of a choke, precaution must be taken not to fill up the CR too much. esp for rowalith. i'm not sure about ARM or aquamedics products cos i've only used rowalith. infact, i faced this choking problem when i used ian's CR. IT WASN"T the design problem...it was me filling it too much with rowa and when the bubbles kicked up the media some ended up in the pump choking it.

so far i've been observing it and filling it up to about 60% will not be a problem as the particles will fall back down

[shoelevy]

sorry for the slow update.

i'm still tuning it

i tried a drip to bubble ratio of 3:1 and ph of effluent was 7.16

then i tried 2:1...ph dropped to 6.67 and then the controller cut off, so i cannot conclude on what ph this ratio will bring

and was abit of cloudiness...so i need to drain the CR of all the gooie stuff before i start tuning again

any bros got recommendation on what drip to bubble ratio to try out?

[shoelevy]

here's an update

after pm-ing houndster (thanks bro) i finally got the tuning right.

here were my previous trials (all ph measurements were made with the weipro ph controller)

BUBBLE: 16/min DRIP:32/min ph:6.67

CR runs cloudy, choke ah...

then the same thing happened with bubble count of 10/min and driprate of 32/min, ph:7.16

the media was burning in the CR but inadequate flow was supplied causing saturation and there was alot of rowa dust. and that caused a choke at the needlewheel exit valve.

so then i spoke with a few rowalith users and pm-ed houndster for advice.

so turns out my drip rate was too slow, the media was burning but the flow through the CR was inadequate.

so this time i tried DRIP:240/min, BUBBLE: 14/min

the ph registered was 6.67

kh: 16

Ca:410

bubble counts and drip rate were steady throught the night and day, CR no longer runs cloudy and no more chokes

i will go increase the bubble to drop the ph and measure the effluent output again. stay tuned!

[houndster]

Hey.. no problem bro... just to check with you wether you using any feeding pump to pump the water in?

[shoelevy]

Hey.. no problem bro... just to check with you wether you using any feeding pump to pump the water in?

ya bro

i am using T off with a valve from the FR pump.

its sth like the pump is more powerful than wat the FR needs, so i install a valve. then the T off is BEFORE the valve, so whatever is left unused by the FR will be forced through the FR

i met a fellow reefer using another CR. he was using SP3000 dosing pump but he said frankly its unnecessary. T off better. what about you bro? how u feed?

[houndster]

Im using a small atman feeding pump... i think its 120L/H

[barnacle]

yo shoelevy, IMO its not advisable to T- off from FR.

as u need to adjust flow to FR thus effect the flow to CR.

its better to T-off from chiller or return.

[shoelevy]

Im using a small atman feeding pump... i think its 120L/H

eh bro, for the hoses, are u using 3mm or 5mm hoses? the fitting is supposed to be 5mm la but at home i have those 3mm spare ones used for fresh water air pumps so i used the 3mm ones. not sure if this has any effect.

yo bro barnacle, long time no see online~! ok point noted, later i go see if i can rewire the hoses to T from chiller!

[shoelevy]

alrighty, i do believe the tuning has come to be decent

these are the values i get

kh:30

Ca: 425

Mg (Grotech Mg media) :1125

ph:6.45

all test kits made using salifert

allow me to share my experience during this period when i didn't update.

i notice that once the ph drops below 6.7, the CR starts to run milky...and this presents a problem of choking the outlet. however, one should note that all CR tend to choke after some time of use. so i highly recommend a dosing pump as after i installed the SP3000 from aquamedic, the effluent drip rate is EXtremely stable.

the milky appearance of the rowalith media is to my understanding, not an issue becos a few other reefers i know also haf this observations even though they use other CR brands.

i think this concludes my review and i shall fine tune the values of the effluent output.

thanks all!

PS:the new CR has a probe holder, somemore selling at same price...DArn, should have waited abit more before i buy.

[Tigger]

kh:30

Ca: 425

Mg (Grotech Mg media) :1125

ph:6.45

all test kits made using salifert

Hi Shoe,

The parameters seems low for a fludising CR. Can share some insight?