Eco-Aqualizer Review

I am writing this review as a result of a recent thread here on 3Reef regarding the Eco-Aqualizer.



I had the opportunity about 10 yrs ago (maybe a little more or less; I've been through a lot since then) to cut one of these “filters” open and see for myself what it was made of. At that time, I saw nothing much that would have any effect on water chemistry let alone anything that would offer any real type of filtration. Shortly after my dissection of the Eco-Aqualizer, I was visiting a local LFS where the owner had just ordered a case of Eco-Aqualizers. He started telling me about how the product will replace every method of aquarium filtration that is currently being used in the hobby. He fell for the salesman pitch hook line and sinker. I tried not to laugh too much as I told him what I had found when I dissected mine. He insisted that these filters were “special” and that what I had described couldn’t possibly be true. He told me that it would kill algae, raise redox make the water sparkling clear, pull bad minerals from the water, cure cancer, do the tango and so on and so on; a real magical product it was, according to him. I said well let's cut one open and see. I told him that I’d would buy his entire case and pay him double what he paid for them if I was wrong. We took one apart and found exactly what I had found in the one that I had taken apart 6 months ago. A pretty outer wrapper, PVC tubing, barbed fittings, rolled cellophane (or maybe it was cellulose acetate), tape, a few magnets and some white dust on the outside of the inner tube of the cellulose roll.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago where a 3Reef member started a thread asking peoples’ opinions about this same miracle product. Since he got a 2 for 1 deal, I was able to purchase one from him for a reasonable price. I purchased this filter with the intention of finding out whether or not the design had changed and, once again, to find out exactly what it could and could not do.

After running this unit on my tank for several weeks, all I can say is that while some may claim that this thing made a difference in their system, it did nothing on mine. ORP stayed about the same but dropped off a little daily the entire time it was on-line . Water was not any clearer and corals did not look any better or worse. All other parameters stayed exactly the same as they did without the unit running. I removed the unit last Saturday after I noticed that my ORP had dropped to 340. Without the Eco-Aqualizer installed, on any given day at that time of day, the redox will usually be in the 370's. The redox started to come back up within hours of my removing the unit. Now, let the dissection begin (please keep in mind that I am not a surgeon with nimble fingers and the pictures below prove that)!




On this newest version of the Eco-Aqualizer, I noticed that there had been a few upgrades made since I last dissected one all those years ago. For example, the outer pipe that the product label is stuck to is now made of polypropylene, which is a better quality product than the thin wall PVC that was used 10+ years ago.




The three magnets that I found on the older model were still there but the tape that was used to hold them onto the pipe had been replaced with a reddish/pink, saran wrap type of stuff (like what that electronic bubble wrap stuff is made of). The red plastic wrap was holding the 3 magnets along the inner tube of the rolled up cellophane. Beneath the “saran wrap,” I found a coating of what I took to be white “magic” powder which was stuck to the outside of that inner tube. It looked like someone had whitewashed it. Sorry for the poor quality of my pictures but photography isn’t my thing.










I sent off some of the magic dust to be analyzed by a friend at a lab in Virginia to find out what it is for sure . I hope to hear back in a week or two and will update this thread when I do. Whatever the powder is, it did increase Ph from 7.1 to almost 7.9 when I scraped some off of the tube and put it into a shot glass of RO/DI water. DKH was not affected nor was Calcium but that matters not as the water can not come into contact with the magic powder/dust.

Buyer beware is all I'd suggest! Sometimes people buy something that they want to see make a difference and it does. I would love to see some hard scientific data on these things. I still say it’s a lot of hooey and they do and did nothing but separate people from their money..

This has all been done before and several guys have taken them apart to find what we all found: an outer tube that contains an inner tube that has magnets held in place with plastic wrap and/or tape. 2 barbed fittings that are epoxied into the inner tube and the outer pipe as well. But I will say the magnets are very very strong on the Gauss scale and if you want strong magnets you can get much larger Neodymium disc magnets elsewhere for about 4 to 5 dollars.

 

Is the Via Aqua pump any good?

interesting write up Tangster

I have a couple of strong magnets in use regular on my tank
one sits outside and the other sits inside LOL

Steve

 

Oh I meant to also add the pump is O.K just about the same quality that came with the little JBL Nano we have But not worth $45.00. A Maxi jet 400 is 100x stronger and they cost 16.00 You guys will have to do your on math , The first one was a large pile of snake oil this is just a smaller pile of the same snake , I put both sets of my magnavours on this tank

 

I was pretty sure nothing substantial had changed and this proves it.

Sam Gamble's reputation took a fairly large hit in a negative way when this first came out. He never should have promoted such a product based on theory as opposed to actual testing. He pretty much disappeared from the hobby scene after that.

 

I wonder Curt. What kind of theory could he possibly have used as a basis for his promotion of this product? When you read the Eco-Aqualizer website, their description of how it works is almost comical. I mean, this sentence alone sounds like something straight out of the Grifter's 101 Handbook:

"Water simply flows through the ECO-Aqualizer unit, where the internal chamber IONIZES the H2O molecules. This triggers reactive stimulations and produces Oxygen radicals which have two main purposes"

 

well i've never heard of the man. lol

good write up, tang. i lurked my way through that thread about this a while back. i usually just roll my eyes and blow idiots off. you, on the other hand, kick it up a notch. kudos to you, man.

 

I was doing fragging demonstrations at the IMAC or MACNA when the product first came on the market. Their demo was very well done. They had a chemical bond plastic visual aid and with it, they showed on it how, when water is hit with far-infrared which was discovered by NASA, these bonds are broken off to be removed by your skimmer, yada, yada, yada. It was all quite impressive......that is except to someone who didn't take organic chemistry. LOL

LOL....back in the day, there was a huge war. Nope not a world war. It was called the DSB-Jaubert Plenum war. Sam was highly involved in that and so was Bob Goemans (who later wrote a review on this product without fully testing it).

 

I got some bad news for ya, Roger. With how you've cut that thing up, I'm afraid you're not going to be able to use it again.

Thanks for the review, though. It's nice that many intelligent people were at least willing to give the product a "benefit of the doubt" and "innocent until proven guilty" mindset. And it's also nice that you took time to test thing, but honestly, when I read the description years ago--it reeked so strongly of snake oil, that I hadn't given buying the product a first, or second thought. Such claims in my mind could only be indicative of someone that was only trying to get one over on the general population.

Happily, reefing and aquaria keeping in general has come a long way--and those engaged in the hobby are not stupid.

Thanks for the review!

 

LOL, I have always told people these are a waste of money at best. At worst they can cause serious issues if the flow is disrupted then turned back on.