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Ehiem micro skimmer 350 review.

Ian Holdich

Ian Holdich

Member
Joined
18 Feb 2010
Messages
3,308
Location
lincoln uk
Is this the best £20 I have spent for a while?

We all suffer some surface scum from time to time, in high energy tanks this seems to be more of a problem, not wanting to get into the debate why we get this problem, I thought I'd write a small review on the above product.

I was supprised to see my lfs selling the new ehiem micro products today, I had read decent reviews about this skimmer, so decided to part with just above £20.

It comes in a neat small box

8406330956_6200cd1152_z.jpg
image by Ian Holdich, on Flickr

At the beginning I was wondering whether the small box was a ploy, and when I got it out, that I would have to build it and it'd end up about 30cm long! (It wasn't btw)

So, it comes with a small power head, rated at 300lph, it seems like a well built little power head.
8406332216_89997fc153_z.jpg
image by Ian Holdich, on Flickr

It then comes with an upper case and a lip that is specially designed to float, this will float up and down up to 3 cm, this gives for any evaporation. There is also a sponge to catch any debris.

8406334980_dd78969589_z.jpg
image by Ian Holdich, on Flickr

I put the unit together and it's about the size of an iPhone, it seems well designed and built with the traditional ehiem quality

8405243413_8cf72856c3_z.jpg
image by Ian Holdich, on Flickr


As you can see from the pic below, the water runs the the four gratings in the top of the lipped part of the unit. This is the part of the unit that goes up and down with the water level.

8405244711_ba239cc80c_z.jpg
image by Ian Holdich, on Flickr


I had a small build up of scum on the top of the tank before I fitted the unit. The unit ran for approx 120 seconds and the top was clear! I was super impressed by the speed it did so...

Nice clean top water
8406340072_46fe438ca6_z.jpg
image by Ian Holdich, on Flickr

The unit is quite unobtrusive when viewing the tank, tucked right in the corner it's doing two things for me, it's clearing the top of the water and is 100% crustal clear. It's also giving me a little extra flow in the part of the tank that doesn't get much flow.
8406338640_c8cd2ee58d_z.jpg
image by Ian Holdich, on Flickr

Is this the best £20 I have spent in a while?

Yes it is, here's to no more surface scum! What a great little unit!

Ps, turn it off when you feed your fish as all of the food will be sucked in to it!
 
Oh, I meant to mention that, no there is no noise from the unit, you hear a trickling noise of water every now and again.
 
Nice work Ian.
I bet its the kind if thing you could just remove and refit whenever you have a scum issue, especially given how fast it does the job.
Cheerio,
Ady
 
I also invested in one of these about 3weeks back, they are great little units - I did originally adapt my intake pipe to have a skimmer on, which worked ok, but not as good as this one - like Ian says switch off at feeding time and also turn the power/ flow to the minimum when switching back on or it will have your carpet & curtains! 😉
 
Cool cheers for the link. I might buy one of these to use occasionally and to remove bloody duckweed from the surface which found its way into my tank!
 
PS, sorry but I actually forgot to say what a great review you did Ian - it's been a long day! I'm sure a few others on here will be investing in one of these now 🙂
 
Nice review ian, i ordered one of these yesterday for when im away, glad to here it isnt wasted cash. I think viktor did mention checking for shimp and small fish in another thread, something about the gaps in the skimmer being a bit big?

Your ammania looks awesome, then it seems to disappear in the last photo 😵 optical illusion?
 
easerthegeezer said:
Your ammania looks awesome, then it seems to disappear in the last photo 😵 optical illusion?
Click to expand...
Zoom in, it's still there 😉.....your right tho.....looks invisible in the last shot 🙂
 
Ady34 said:
Zoom in, it's still there 😉.....your right tho.....looks invisible in the last shot 🙂
Click to expand...
Think he just gave it a trim before that last photo lol to see who spotted it!
 
easerthegeezer said:
Nice review ian, i ordered one of these yesterday for when im away, glad to here it isnt wasted cash. I think viktor did mention checking for shimp and small fish in another thread, something about the gaps in the skimmer being a bit big?

Your ammania looks awesome, then it seems to disappear in the last photo 😵 optical illusion?
Click to expand...

Yup confirmed. Got another feedback from our forum members yesterday that an oto get trapped and dead. So better to run if you need only. We do use 2-3 of them on our tanks and not had any issue but 3rd guy report me about this
 
Cheers guys, here's what I have picked up after 2 days of use.

1. The surface is still crystal clear

2. It has caught a couple of shrimp, they are still alive though.

3. I test the tds everyday for the sake of the rams, and keep it at a pretty constant level. Over two day it normally rises about 30ppm, so water changes have been about 2-3 times a week. Over the last two day of this running its only risen 10ppm. I'm not sure whether this is because before when the tds meter was being introduced into the water, the film stuck to the electrodes and gave a false result, or that the scum of the water adds drastically to tds.

Will report back in a few days.
 
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