Fed up with EA lily pipe intake - anyone get them to work?

[Epiphyte]

Before I throw out these rather expensive, yet to me utterly useless, lily pipes, has anyone got them to work well?

I cannot seem to find a balance to limit air intake from them. Even with the bottom valve wide open, it bobs up and down until the suction gets the best of it and clamps it down, inhaling anything that gets close. So I place a cable tie around the skimmer portion to stop how far it can go into the glass part. This works okay for the smallest of margins of water level. A fraction too high and you get a sucking noise as it pulls in 50/50 air and water, and if I put it a little bit down, the bobbing starts again and eventually works the cable tie down and submerges itself.

It's incredibly frustrating and is making it impossible to purge my Oase Biomaster 600 of air, a challenge in itself in the best of times. Best case scenario it's permanently obnoxiously noisy, worst case sometimes it gets so bad that I've walked past my tank to find the filter has airlocked and is no longer pumping, endangering my livestock and potentially the pump motor too.

Is there some magic thing I can do to this intake skimmer to solve my issues which doesn't include throwing it in the bin?

Thanks!

 

[Sammy Islam]

I had this issue for over a year until i figured it out, my surface skimmer would bob up and down multiple times a day and it was really pi**ing me off. I tried a few things like inserting a bit of airline tube under the "hat" to stop it from being sucked under.

The thing that has essentially stopped it from bobbing is to pull out the stopper at the bottom as far as it will go, this allows an extra intake slit to become free recuducing the bobbing.

 

[Epiphyte]

I had this issue for over a year until i figured it out, my surface skimmer would bob up and down multiple times a day and it was really pi**ing me off. I tried a few things like inserting a bit of airline tube under the "hat" to stop it from being sucked under.

The thing that has essentially stopped it from bobbing is to pull out the stopper at the bottom as far as it will go, this allows an extra intake slit to become free recuducing the bobbing.

Sammy, you are a genius!

Just lowered it until the o-ring is just in the glass tube and, so far, it's been 5 minutes, it's running silent and air free.

I'll see how it goes over time, but it does seem a really poor bit of design.

 

[jacquieb]

Oh, I feel your pain. Same set up, same problems: Slurping in the middle of the night from the intake, the creak of doom when trying to prime the filter...

 

[Rich C]

Its a very poor design full stop but with a little tinkering can be made to work, on first set up i noticed that if the skimmer head got sucked down the plastic pipe blocked the glass exit to my canister filter, terrific who designed this rubbish, so out with the dremel and cut the plastic tube so it would not block the exit if the surface skimmer got sucked down, i have since employed a o ring on the skimmer plastic tube to keep the skim head where i want, skimming the surface water, next problem was the inlet slots were to small even when fully open to supply enough water to the canister so pulled out the stopper at the bottom and shaped a piece of course foam around the bottom making sure all the slots were open and not covered by the foam, happy to say its working well, canister flow much better and skimming the surface well, because i have loads of shrimp and tiny fish i cut a piece of green kitchen scourer for inside the skimmer head to save any critters getting sucked into the filter,

 

[Epiphyte]

Great idea with the foam at the bottom @Rich C. Next water change I may try this, I'll go find some black sponge and jam some up the end.

I've had terrible troubles with my pipes essentially since I bought them, until last week and I've not had a peep from them at all, they've been excellent. No idea why though

 

[Rich C]

Great idea with the foam at the bottom @Rich C. Next water change I may try this, I'll go find some black sponge and jam some up the end.

I've had terrible troubles with my pipes essentially since I bought them, until last week and I've not had a peep from them at all, they've been excellent. No idea why though

You can find the sponges on ebay

eBay item number:
194037497259

Better than jamming sponge up the pipe, just cut about 30mm up from the closed end, fits a treat around the pipe

 

[Tom Delattre]

Tried these skimmer inlets with a Biomaster 600 for the better part of last year with varying but never lasting success. The closest I got was what has been mentioned earlier (trying to increase the bottom suction) but it worked only for a few days then started again. In the end I ditched it for a normal inlet, and found out the lily outlet actually does the job pretty well. No surface film whatsoever. Also I get a better laminar flow that is better for the bottom plants.
So I just add an Eheim skimmer for an hour or a couple of days when I trim or when I feel like oxygenation is low.
The thing I never tried was to drill more holes in the bottom part. That should help.
Another gadget I found later is a rotating skimmer replacement part for the inlet. It's supposed to solve the bobbing problem. I found one only in a french retailer (skaii and shrimps, search for "skimmer rotatif"). I'll try to add a link but not sure I can: Skimmer Rotatif pour Pipes Inox - Skaii and shrimps


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