AquaMaxx EM300

[Wildman926]

I had purchased an EM200 to replace the SRO 2000 I have on my 150g. After a long wait, I decided to up it on to an EM300, see how much of a mismatch it would be. Needless to say, it was not too much, and just idles more of the time than the SRO 2000 (rated for 200g, used to be 150g).
The skimmer came boxed very well. It is centered squarely in the middle of the box with very thick foam.
There is only one flaw that I can see with the skimmer, and that is the tabs used on the body for the collection cup to attach. They are too thin, almost flimsy. The cup will rotate only 1/8 – 1/4 “ to be secured to the body. The directions state to only rotate 1/8 “, so please, don’t king kong the cup to the body, or you will break the tabs off. I used some silicone grease on this area, as I do all orings, and it made it easier to rotate the cup the 1/8 – 1/4 “ the cup needed to be secure.
I rinsed the skimmer off real quick, put her in there, and fired her up. Very easy to adjust, just like the EM100 I had. I can not stress how quiet this skimmer is. It is dead silent, no exaggerating. As you can see in the pics below, there is much more volume with the 8" body as compared to the semi-cone of the SRO 2000, above the bubble plates. I have an EM200 that will be here Thursday, and I will compare it to the SRO for an apples to apples 6" body comparison.

 

[Wildman926]

The skimmer pulls a ton of air, and when I first fired it up, there was massive turbulence in the neck area. It is normal, as it settled down after about 30 minutes, and got to work creating a foam head. If it had not settled down, I was worried about having to modify it to restrict the air. But the air intake is very balanced. Perfect sized bubbles in the correct areas. I then adjusted to where I liked it to be. Once it was set, I checked on it every now and then for about 2 hours, and adjusted to where I thought it needed to be to skim wet. Once it dumped out all that it would pull for that day, it sat idle.
The skimmer is very easy to take apart. There are 4 plastic screws that secure the body to the base. The output pipe can be removed and/or adjusted to point the output, located at the bottom near the grey elbow of the body, any direction you would like. The airline is huge. The pump draws a massive amount of air, so much so, that the silencer can not keep it totally silent. I was going to use cotton balls to make it completely silent, but it is not necessary, as I could not hear it once I closed the cabinet doors.
I have already modified it to use with my simple ozone setup, and put to use vinyl tubing vice the rubber. I thought that I would upset the balance of the air intake draw with the extra venturi for the ozone connection, but that was not the case. I am very happy about that. Here are some pics of it running. The first 2 pics is a couple of hours after initially starting up. I will try to post a video of it later -

 

[Wildman926]

Here is my last pic. I have attached tubing to the intake to draw fresh air outside of the stand, from the back, attached to the edge.

 

[Dtech07]

ITs a great skimmer for sure. I just set mine up two weeks ago and like you it was skimming dark crud in three hours of starting. my O2 reading also increased due to the increased bubbles and the skimmate is thicker and darker because having a longer air/organic touch time.
I also have the AquaMax S1 Skimmer which is also GREAT!