Modifying an E-Shopps R-200 refugium

Jason R

Jason R

New member
I haven't been very happy with the first chamber of my E-Shopps R-200 refugium for a while and have been thinking about ways to modify it. I REALLY LIKE the way the Aqueon ProFlex sumps handle the first chamber so I am thinking about trying to mod my E-Shopps to match it.

E-Shopps R-200
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Aqueon ProFlex
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I have some ideas of how to do it but I wanted to bounce them off of everyone to see if my idea is worth attempting.

I thinking about getting a Plexi Glass sheet and drilling two holes for the filter socks and another hole for the drain. I was planning on using a larger PVC pipe with a cap for the drain hole. I don't want to glue it in permanently until I am sure it will work, and that it is at the right height so I was thinking of making a PVC "table" for it to sand on. Does this make sense so far?
 
OK. So I have started working on it. I was able to cut a sheet of High Impact Polystyrene and made a hole in it for the drain pipe. I am going to use a PVC pipe with a cap on the end. I'll post pictures later.
 
All you really have to do is extend a pvc pipe into the water, that will eliminate some of the noise. If your worried about bubbles, the area bewteen the 2nd & 3rd baffle should take care of those....right? I am with you on the first chamber of the pro flex sumps, pretty nice. Let me know what you end up doing, how much it cost time/material and i may end up doing the same!
 
I was never worried about bubbles. It was always about the filter socks. I think it is a pain in the butt to change out filter socks when they have the return pipe go into them. In hindsight I learned that the drain return design on the E-Shopps sucks. With a skimmer in the front chamber you don't have a lot of room to slide out the filter sock. You end up having to lift out the whole sock holder which can lead to occasional spills. I also end up with salt creep running down the side because its its own splash back.

I like the way the Aqueon ProFlex utilizes its filter socks because they can be popped in and out easily and you can use more than one filter sock on a single drain pipe. It just makes so much more sense to me. Since I switched over to Bio-Pellets I don't have much use for the refugium aspect of the middle chamber so moving the skimmer there isn't an issue.
 
YEah, i would def be utilizing the fuge in mine, so skimmer in the first chamber is a must for me. i always keep an eye open for an acrylic tube just for that reason. I would love to customize my sumps first chamber to work like the proflex. just havent come across a viable option as of yet.
 
If I did go back to using it for a refugium I would get an external skimmer rather then go back to the old sock system.
 
OK. I built version 1 and mostly nailed it. The only thing I want to change is being able to get the filter sock rim to sit a bit lower so the water doesn't have to go over a lip. Once I fix that then I'll post some pics so you can see what I did.
 
Here are the pics I promised. I have made a few more adjustments that I will post once I can get better shots.


I cut a sheet of .125" High Impact Poly Styrene to fit the first chamber of the skimmer. In that sheet I cut a 2" hole for a 2" PVC pipe and a rectangle so I could reuse the rectangular filter socks that came with the refugium. I originally cut the rectangle so that it was slightly smaller than the size of the full sock lid so that it could rest on the sheet. I put all of this on a stand made of egg crate. Originally I made a stand with all four sides but it became difficult to fit in the skimmer because of shortage of room between the top of the refugium and the top of the stand. I ended up switching to a three sided structure that I could collapse to get it into the refugium. I put a cap and plug on the end of my 2" PVC pipe and cut it to be 1/2" short of the top of the refugium.

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When I popped it into my refugium I noticed that the water was having a hard time going over the lip of the sock so I made an additional change. I enlarged the rectangle cut so that the sock could go completely through it and then glued some styrene sheets to the bottom of the original sheet to be the lip for the socks to rest on. This allowed the sock to be flush with the whole sheet. This worked better but I noticed that more water was slipping out through the small gaps between the sheet and the sides of the chamber than was going in to the sock.

My latest revision was to create a short wall around the pipe and sock holes and this seems to be working the best. Here is a top down drawing of what it looks like.

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Now the water is going through the sock. It's ghetto but it is working nicely. I am waiting to change out the sock for a few days to see what happens when it gunks up.

I didn't glue anything to the refugium so that this could be easily removable in the event I didn't like it. If I had glued it in with silicon I probably wouldn't have needed to make the revisions to the original design. Then again since it is a much smaller water area I think there are even simpler ways to do it. You could just as easily use a shallow Tupperware bowl with a hole for the return pipe and a hole for the sock and not need to have it take up all of the first chamber.
 
While this version works really nicely it does end up using the whole first chamber. I have an idea for a "mini" version that would do the same functionality but use up less real estate in the sump.

My mini idea would replace the plastic sheet with a shallow rectangular Tupperware container. The PVC pipe hole and the hole for the PVC sock would be side by side. The walls of the Tupperware container would allow you to ensure that the majority of the water would go through the sock while not taking up all of the chamber. Since the sock would be in a separate hole than the return pipe it would be a lot easier to change out. If something was glued to the bottom of the PVC pipe to keep it level and stable it probably wouldn't require an egg crate frame. I might throw together a prototype and see how it turns out.
 
Right now I am running a slower return flow since I want more contact time with the skimmer, biopellets, etc. I'm thinking this should improve my skimmer and pellet performance.

I am using a vortech for flow inside the tank. I am going to see how this plays out and will increase the return flow if it would make an improvement.
 
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