Clarisea Roll Shrinking?

[Variant]

I've been using a Clarisea 3000 in my sump with no issues for the past 12 months but with a recent roll change, I noticed that as the roll gets collected to the waste side, it shrinks quite a bit. It shrinks so much that it can barely cover all the holes. What ends up happening is the roll shrinks, can't cover all the holes in the unit and water ends up bypassing the filter roll and then there is a loud waterfall noise that comes out of this.

Anyone have the same issue? If there a difference in roll quality recently???

 

[Big G]

Bump

 

[Shirak]

Is it bunching up in the middle which is causing the edges to shift inward? Or if it is not rolling straight on the waste side it could shift to one side or the other.

 

[Variant]

Is it bunching up in the middle which is causing the edges to shift inward? Or if it is not rolling straight on the waste side it could shift to one side or the other.

The roll is rolling on straight and is not bunching up at all. Right after I replaced the old roll with a new roll that I recently bought, it looked fine. Obviously because it was new and didn't have any time to wet/dry/shrink. But over the course of 24 hours, the roll started to shrink on the waste side and if I move it to the left to stop water from leaking from the left side, then I wouldn't have enough coverage on the right side and the right side would start to spill water...

It's super frustrating, especially because it creates a waterfall noise which is loud, plus it's not doing it's job of filtering my water...

for what it's worth, the roll that is causing me this problem is a gen 2 XL. But I've used Gen 2 XLs before and they were fine...

 

[Shirak]

Huh weird. I haven't had any problem you describe with Clarisea rolls on my 5000. I have heard others using off brand rolls with a similar issue. My guess is there is some resistance pulling the material through which causes it to stretch and decrease in width. I wonder if there is more resistance in your unit for some reason than previously?

 

[Variant]

Huh weird. I haven't had any problem you describe with Clarisea rolls on my 5000. I have heard others using off brand rolls with a similar issue. My guess is there is some resistance pulling the material through which causes it to stretch and decrease in width. I wonder if there is more resistance in your unit for some reason than previously?

This is a great point, I can try to see if the clean roll is on too tight for some reason, causing it to stretch vertically causing this shrinkage...

 

[Shirak]

GL Hope you are able to figure out what's going on!

 

[justice]

I often get a lot of detritus stuck in the lower white roller portion, when this happens the filter paper tends to get stuck. When the roller pulls new material the paper gets pulled so tight that it shrinks and doesn't cover all the holes. I usually clean out the unit before putting in new roll.

 

[Variant]

I often get a lot of detritus stuck in the lower white roller portion, when this happens the filter paper tends to get stuck. When the roller pulls new material the paper gets pulled so tight that it shrinks and doesn't cover all the holes. I usually clean out the unit before putting in new roll.

I suspected this would be the case and did a full sump clean up job a couple weeks ago. But the problem remains. I'm going to see if the clean roll was put on too tight. If not, then perhaps take a video showing the issue to Ecotech customer support to see if they can trouble shoot this with me....

 

[Variant]

Quick update for those interested...

I contacted Ecotech, the North America distributor for the Clarisea to report the problem and it proved to be less than helpful. Technically I do not have the Clarisea 3000 Gen 2. I have the GEO sump that integrated the clarisea filters into the sump. When Ecotech support realized this, they immediately dismissed my problem and instead of being helpful, went on to blame GEO for their design...

Now in defense of GEO sumps... I know for a fact that their auto roller sumps are good because they worked perfectly fine with the clarisea rolls, I went through 5+ rolls worth of operations without a single issue. But when I replaced the last roll with the XL, the problem started up.

The motor side doesn't seem to be an issue since it's been working. I tested the clean roll side to see if the cardboard core was damaged and it was not. I checked to see if the clean roll was rolling freely or stuck, it's rolling freely. There is no debris inside the unit because I literally cleaned the sump 2 weeks ago and i visually checked again.

I did more research and I found that some people run into issues with rolls stretching when they try to use third party rolls they source from Ebay (probably because some rolls are made with material that is stretchier than others). Another user with problems with the XL roll seemed to suggest that the motor handles the XL roll differently, almost as if the motor was originally design for a certain amount of new roll (size /resistance).

I'm going to continue troubleshooting, but I'm a bit disappointed that Ecotech was so suick to dismiss my problem. It's not like the clarisea is a car or space rocket where even the slightest design change can mean it works or it doesn't. It's just a bunch of acrylic pieces with holes in different places with a motor... If my sump worked with the regular rolls, why would it not work with the XL...

Anyone have a direct contact to D-D that might prove a bit more helpful?

 

[Shirak]

Sorry to hear of your difficulty still. I too would think if the regular roll worked why not the XL. Hope you are able to get this sorted out! Try a roll of the regular length again and see if it makes a difference? Maybe try cutting off a few yards of the XL filter material and seeing if a shorter piece works as intended?

 

[Joedirty]

I've been using a Clarisea 3000 in my sump with no issues for the past 12 months but with a recent roll change, I noticed that as the roll gets collected to the waste side, it shrinks quite a bit. It shrinks so much that it can barely cover all the holes. What ends up happening is the roll shrinks, can't cover all the holes in the unit and water ends up bypassing the filter roll and then there is a loud waterfall noise that comes out of this.

Anyone have the same issue? If there a difference in roll quality recently???

I’ve been fighting this same problem for 2 months and I finally figured it out at least for me. When you have the Plastic screws that hold it togeather to tight it starts to bow the white plastic sheet that the filter rides on and over the course of using a roll it just gets worse and worse because it’s making the paper more narrow as time goes on. Look at the back plastic and see if it’s bowed and if it is then I suggest taking it apart flip the front to the back making the bow go the other way and that should fix it. I had to heat mine up to take the bend out. Also it seems to work better if you run the motor with the cord up not down. Hope this helps you as it did fix mine.

 

[nolifer]

I've been using a Clarisea 3000 in my sump with no issues for the past 12 months but with a recent roll change, I noticed that as the roll gets collected to the waste side, it shrinks quite a bit. It shrinks so much that it can barely cover all the holes. What ends up happening is the roll shrinks, can't cover all the holes in the unit and water ends up bypassing the filter roll and then there is a loud waterfall noise that comes out of this.

Anyone have the same issue? If there a difference in roll quality recently???

I have seen your post on another forum from the picture it looks like you cleaned the unit? the plastic bends into shape if you don't put it back correctly and can cause you problems as I found out when taken mine apart to clean it. one thing I found was not to overdo the screws when tightening it back up. I also found changing the wire downwards rather than upwards worked better when putting the new rolls on as it was trying to roll on it would not and the alarm would go off so I swapped the motor round so the wire was downwards to the sump and it stopped jamming. hope you get the problem solved

 

[Torben]

Had issues with motor going error due to XL roll larger diameter on motor side requiring much higher torque to turn
Fix was to cut half way and unspool used material from motor as much too tight to slide off.

Changed to small roll but the material is NOT the same. Original product but clogged immediately do filter ran through one roll in one week.
Used roll was coffee color on XL and mint tea color on standard roll.

Besides the issues with bulging rolled material due to weak design and retro-fit needed this product is just a better DIY solution..

 

[Shirak]

I was doing a lot of sand cleaning recently and stirring up fine debris. I could hear the motor running frequently as stuff was removed from the water. One thing I noticed was the filter material was starting to get stretched and narrow. It was physically hard to pull the material from the unused side to the used side. I took it out and pulled it apart entirely to clean everything and it works perfectly again. I think some fine grit was down in the two bottom rollers making them hard to turn.

 

[David Cher]

i have this issue that the water level does not raise high enough to push the float . when i manually push the switch the motor move the fleece which proves it is working

 

[Shirak]

i have this issue that the water level does not raise high enough to push the float . when i manually push the switch the motor move the fleece which proves it is working

Is water sneaking past the filter material? Eventually it should clog enough to raise the level unless it's bypassing the material somehow. I had this problem when the material was not rolling through smoothly and getting stretched too narrow at the top on the motor side. The holes in the plate outside the material were exposed a little and water was just flowing past the filter.

 

[David Cher]

Is water sneaking past the filter material? Eventually it should clog enough to raise the level unless it's bypassing the material somehow. I had this problem when the material was not rolling through smoothly and getting stretched too narrow at the top on the motor side. The holes in the plate outside the material were exposed a little and water was just flowing past the filter.

the roll is very light in colour

 

[Shirak]

the roll is very light in colour

Well that could be from low amounts of stuff for it to collect in the water or the water is getting past the filter material along with detritus. Is the material covering all the holes in the plastic? The little gate is shut at the bottom?

How long have you let it sit without messing with it? Eventually it should collect enough detritus and other stuff to raise the water level it it's working properly.