easy hose size mod for hydor eth inline heater

[the_deeb]

I posted a thread a while ago asking if I could use 3/4" hose on a 300W Hydor ETH heater but I didn't get many responses. Anyway, I went ahead and bought the heater and it turned out that it really needs 5/8" hose and 3/4" hose was too large. But I came up with a pretty easy solution to allow the heater to accept 3/4" hose.

First, I got rid of the plastic hose clamp things that came with the heater.

Next, I cut a small piece of vinyl hose with a 5/8" inner diameter and 3/4" outer diameter. I stuck in very hot water for a minute to soften it up and them forced it onto the barb.

I then pushed my 3/4" ID hose over that (using hot water to soften it up and make it easier to get on).

It fit on pretty tightly but I finished by sticking on a pair of screw-type hose clamps for extra security and peace of mind.

And there you have it - a pretty easy mod to get the heater to use 3/4" hose and cheaper and cleaner looking than using a barbed adapter.

 

[Zander_The_RBP]

why not just use an adapter fitting 5/8-3/4" instead ? Pretty sure you can get them at any hardware store.

EDIT : didn't see what you wrote below the pics. Yes it defintely is cheaper but i wouldn't say is nesicarily looks any "cleaner" than a fitting.

But cool idea i remember i did something like it for my gravel vacuum when i still had my 29 gallon with gravel running. I Built a new siphon hose out of 3/4"tubing but i need to stick on a larger tube at the end for gravel vacumming but the tube went into 5/8" tubing. So i stuck on a bit of 5/8 tubing and stuck thatt into the 3/4" tubing and it worked great and i could remove it when i had to do a water change on the 150 (which had sand not gravel).

I did it cause i was cheap and didn't want to go buy a fitting to make it work properly

 

[fishbum]

Nice. Good idea.

 

[the_deeb]

Yes it defintely is cheaper but i wouldn't say is nesicarily looks any "cleaner" than a fitting.

I've used barbed reducer fittings before but IMO the less stuff I can include in my plumbing lines, the less cluttered it looks so this definitely looks "cleaner" to me. Once it's been set up you don't even notice the 5/8" tubing - it just looks like the 3/4" connects directly to the heater.

Also, I should note that 3/4" to 5/8" reducers can be tricky to find. None of the regular hardware stores near me had them (3/4" to 1/2" and 3/4" to 1" were common, it was the 5/8" dimension that was the problem). I eventually found them at West Marine online, but didn't want to pay $10 shipping for a $2 part.

 

[Starlette]

That is a great idea, thanks for posting. I will use that on my 120g. Kind of makes you wish they would use the multi sized fittings like on most uv sterilizers huh?

 

[plecostic]

I did mine following this example and it works perfectly.

quick question,

I understand that the heater has to be vertical, on my canister I setup the hoses a little different and wanted your opinion on something.

The intake hose (left) is cut to go straight up to the intake.* The outlet hose (right) instead of cutting it, I left it as is and connected one end to the canister and the other end to the ETH Heater to form a loop and used the remaining left over hose from the intake and connected that to the heater to the outlet in the tank. I thought this setup was creative and it was so easy to do.

Everything works great, however, I notice when, turning the filter off for cleaning, it's difficult to get it primed again, would this have to do with the hose loop ? I wasn't sure if having that loop would interfere or not.