Aqua C Remora Noise Baffle

[Drez]

Hi all, just thought I would share this with anyone who has an Aqua C Remora skimmer or like setup. I find skimmers (HOT esp.) make too much noise, esp. when your display tank is in the living room. To reduce the noise produced by my skimmer I made a simple baffle to cover the chamber where the bubbles are being produced. This took maybe 10 min and requires household items.

 

Need:

-Plastic (I use #4, the lid off a cream cheese container)

-Air tube

-OPTIONAL – glue gun

 

Steps:

 

1) Take out the collection cup and dab it on a piece of paper, this will outline the aprox. size of the chamber as the 1st chamber is about the same size as the reaction chamber

2) Cut out the damp outline of the paper and stick it to your plastic, use it as an outline to cut out the plastic.

3) Take your air line hose and cut on one side across the whole length (which should be the total circumference of your plastic minus a little bit)

4) Cut the first to match the length of one side of your plastic, then cut 3 more according to how long you will need, you will need a little less then the total circumference as the with will take up some space on at least 2 sides.

5) Test the square with hoses around the edges for fit in the hole; you want it tight so it should bend a bit along its width, but not too much. Trim the length to fit and the width so that it will bend when in place.

6) OPTIONAL, I chose to use a glue gun to keep the air tube edges in place; I glued the top side only so that the glue won’t be in contact with the water as I don’t know if it is harmful. If you make your lengthwise cut along the inside of where the tube naturally curls it will stay on without glue though.

7) Put it in place and clean it when you clean your skimmer

 

I’ve added pictures to explain and help visualize

 

Hope this helps!

 

Cheers,

-Andreas

 

 

[Sandeep]

You are the man Andreas! It works awsome, that noise was driving me nuts.

[satcong]

Andreas,

 

So you cut the tubing in one side to slide the plastic on each side? Then glue it to keep it tight? Or you just cut the tubing and glue them on top of each of the lid cut off? Man, my skimmer is making noise. Like the water gushing sound!

[Drez]

You cut the the tubing and slip the plastic into the cut. The glue just prevents the tube from slipping off again. You can do without the glue, the tubing would probably fall off though. If I were to do it again I might use silicone rather than the glue gun. I found the hot glue started to wear away after about 6 mo.

 

If the sound is really bothering you this will help for sure. I know some other people have tried this since with good success.

[jpndave]

Hmmm.....

 

I am going to try this on my urchin. I'll report back.

[Drez]

Hope it helps. My only caveat is that I can't guarantee that this won't reduce effectiveness. It's possible in theory that it could reduce air getting in. I haven't noticed this or any reduction in skimmate but I'm also running a skimmer that's a bit bigger then I would need.

[Mikec0078]

The sound reduction is amazing. I got in trouble because my other half can't believe that I went so long without doing this mod. This was done to my Remora that is on my 55 in my living room. Although the sound became common and we just got used to it, it was the best mod I have done to that tank in a long time. Thanks so much for this post, it is the best. I haven't noticed any decrease in performance of my skimmer either.

[disaster999]

i tried the mod last night. i took, took a piece of plastic and instead of surrounding the area with tubing, i just did the 2 long sides so it wont be air tight. it did cut the noise down, but not completely silent.

[do_0b]

dont mean to hijack but anyone know anymods for the cpr bakpak2+?

[arthurlo]

For the really lazy, you can just fold up a paper towel to a size that fits the injection chamber.

 

As the towel gets wet, it will damp the noise on the Remora quite well. Just make sure that the towel isn't in the water, but just over the injection nozzle.

 

For the CPR, the best I can suggest is to play around with the air intake. I plugged an airstone into the end of the air intake tubing and that helped to quiet things down a bit.

[smackoww]

For the really lazy, you can just fold up a paper towel to a size that fits the injection chamber.

 

As the towel gets wet, it will damp the noise on the Remora quite well. Just make sure that the towel isn't in the water, but just over the injection nozzle.

 

For the CPR, the best I can suggest is to play around with the air intake. I plugged an airstone into the end of the air intake tubing and that helped to quiet things down a bit.

 

oh my god, you are a lifesaver. i just put some folded up paper towels in my Ramora Pro. its almost totally silent. amazing!!!

 

however, i have a good cheap idea to increasing skimmer power for the ramora. feed an airtube down the skimmer cup with one of those limewood skimmer air stones. ta-da!!! im actually gonna try that tomorrow

[SeeDemTails]

Cool trick!

 

however, i have a good cheap idea to increasing skimmer power for the ramora. feed an airtube down the skimmer cup with one of those limewood skimmer air stones. ta-da!!! im actually gonna try that tomorrow

 

Unnecessary hassel.

[burtbollinger]

this mod worked great....reduced noise by approx 50% on my remora nano...I used an old Dave & Busters Power Card (any old credit card will do)...a pair of scissors and some super glue.

 

cut plastic card to fit....bend it to kinda soften up and make it flex a bit more....snip and glue pieces of tubing around edges....then wedge it in that area good....

 

easy....and I'm kind of a lummox....no good with tools....

[tubatime1010]

Sorry to bring back an old thread but I just wanted to mention that this works just as well if not better (I think it's a bit better) with acrylic instead of the plastic lid/milk container.

 

So if you've got a 6 dollar cheapo sheet of acrylic laying around...boom...Remora silencer!

 

Plus I see this as a longer lasting alternative to the other way. I dont really see any difference in bubbling so far...I'll report my findings on skimmate production back in a few days.

[PBUEHH]

Sorry to bring back an old thread but I just wanted to mention that this works just as well if not better (I think it's a bit better) with acrylic instead of the plastic lid/milk container.

 

So if you've got a 6 dollar cheapo sheet of acrylic laying around...boom...Remora silencer!

 

Plus I see this as a longer lasting alternative to the other way. I dont really see any difference in bubbling so far...I'll report my findings on skimmate production back in a few days.

 

if you hadn't posted i would not have found this!! thank you!

[RayinAZ]

Thank You!

 

I found this forum by binging Aqua C Remora and noise. I joined the forum just to give a thanks to the posters for this solution.

 

I've had my Remora for five years and was about to try another model because it's just too noisy for our kitchen because we eat near the tank--even though the Remora works great. It, power heads, and live rock are all I've been running on my 100 gallon and I've been able to keep and grow pretty much everything.

 

The paper towel method instantly reduced the noise dramatically. No need to try a new skimmer. I'm going to try acrylic method next.

 

Thank you all for posting, and I look forward to searching the rest of the site.

 

Ray

[jtl2]

Used the paper towel, great improvement.

[Bar2z]

A little late on contributing but anyone who looks at this later I took a sponge and cut it to fit around the injector and jammed that sucker in and fits perfect and doesn't preent the collection cup from its lowest setting. Amazingly silent!