MP40QD magnet flaw?
 

This is a warning on the MP40QD wetside assemblies. I am not sure if this is a known issue or not. I am a huge ecotech fan and own 4 radion pro gen 3's, a reeflink, the vectra L1 and 3 MP40QDs so I am not trying to hate on ecotech at all. Let me start at the beginning.

I purchased 3 brand new MP40QD pumps for my 200 gallon display (left side, right side and back side) shortly after they were introduced to market. MP40QDs worked great until about 6-7 months ago when I seemingly randomly lost an orchid dottyback, lineatus wrasse and 2 flame wrasses along with a yellow tang and a naso tang within a short time frame. I thought is was very odd as nothing had changed on the tank that I could tell.

Fast forward a few weeks while I am still reeling from the loss of my fish, my acropora and LPS begin struggling. Bleaching at first until finally it was completely dead. I went from many corals to only 2 survivors, half a rainbow monti and a montipora setosa in about 3 weeks time. I was dumbfounded. Literally nothing had changed on the tank that I could tell. I run a full apex system and everything is automated. I ripped everything I could think of apart and cleaned it, removed rock and cured it, did massive water changes and tried to find a cause. I never found anything I could definitively say had caused the problem.

I was dejected. I nearly gave up on my tank and contemplated taking it down. I think the only thing that kept my tank up and going were the few surviving corals and fish. Well just the other day I noticed a sound coming from one of the MP40QD pumps that I had not heard before. It was loud and sounded like the pump was struggling. The wetside had become disconnected. I put my hand on the dryside and it was almost hot enough to burn my skin. I tried to re-attach the wetside only to have it fling off immediately upon restarting the pump. I immediately turned the pump off and tried to troubleshoot what was happening and noticed that the propeller was very difficult to spin on the wetside. I had routinely cleaned the wetsides of the MP40QDs and tried to keep coraline algae at bay to avoid seizing up , but until now did not realize that you can remove the magnet from the housing. Maybe I am dense, but no manual I had seen explained that this was possible. Well I opened the housing and this is what I saw.


http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/w...pscd9zwo9o.jpg


http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/w...pswsih4cod.jpg


http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps6aduw5vg.jpg

It looks like the magnet has exploded and nearly completely rusted out. The expansion eventually caused the wetside to seize up and cause the dryside to malfunction.

I immediately grabbed the wetside off of the 2 other pumps I have and tore them apart. This is what I saw:

http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/w...pskjjgoany.jpg

Pump 2 looked okay, but pump 3 did not!

http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/w...psclmq3vuw.jpg

http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps8tfq4tnb.jpg

Pump 3 has a linear crack in the black housing that extends to the central cap and there is the slightest raised surface under the crack.

I was again left speechless and dumbfounded. Could this have been the cause of my tank crash? It is certainly the only abnormal thing I have found since my loss. I was furious. It has taken me several hours to calm down enough to even put together this post. 2 out of 3 of my pumps seem to be affected and one has progressed to the point of taking down the dryside so now I suspect the pump is worthless. This seems like a flaw that may affect more people than just myself.

I caution you to check the magnets on your wetside assemblies as soon as you can. I have no idea what it is going to require to get my tank back to normal at this point.

David

I recently picked up a used MP10W that was suppose to be in good working order.
It wasn't, and one of the issues was a swollen magnet like yours.

Wow, have you contacted ecotech directly on this matter?
I know I had a couple bad wet sides on my brand new MP40QD's, but mine just popped off or screamed like banshees right from the start, so they were not in water long enough to have something like this happen.
Rust in tank is obviously not good, it's hard to say if that was the reason for tank crash issues or not, maybe, certainly would be helpful to begin the process of elimination on an obvious failure.
Thanks for the post and great photo documentation, I hope ecotech resolves this issue.

I have been working a lot since I posted and have not taken the issue directly to Ecotech yet. I thought that this forum would garner some input from them but I guess not, at least so far.

Is this a common issue? I owned several of the older MP40s and never saw this problem. Was I just lucky before?

Another point that i didn't stress in the original post was that these pumps were all purchased on the same day, with very similar manufacture dates.

Your post has been the most obvious failure and best photo documentation of a failure that I've seen, and hopefully eco has or does see this and responds.
I've had many vorts over the years, going back to the original MP20's and they are pretty much all I've used since then, and still very much my favorite pump design, but I know I had a couple bad ones in a row recently and have seen other posts.

I also bought 2 new QD's around the same time and saw an obvious difference in how they mated, one seemed to never click together solid, and that one made noise right away, and as I tried to slightly adjust it the screen popped off really easy, and a few times the 2 sides popped off the glass on startup.

I contacted eco and they did replace one wet side right away, but it was the same, and when I contacted them saying they sent a 2nd bad one that is where we suddenly had issues, and the rep told me it was impossible to get 2 in a row bad and it must be user error, and it was a major hassle getting my issue resolved, and took about a month or longer to finally get what I paid for in the first place.

I've been around long enough to know often manufacturer's do get some bad parts once in a while, it happens, but they don't seem to want to recognize that as a possibility, so far anyway, so I'm interested in their response on this very obvious failure, and wondering if more people have had similar issues.

They still are a great pump, my favorite design, but they could improve how they handle some issues and customer service IMO.

The old mp40 still had proper magnets and not this with plastic coated garbage:furious:

Drclifton,

This is not a common issue and we would like to assist you ASAP. That said, please contact me directly to proceed. Service@ecotechmarine.com Attn: Alex

I had the same thing happened last year to a MP40w from around 2011 (?). I just tossed the wet side and got a replacement from BRS. I figured it ran for so long that I got my moneys worth.

One good sign if this would happen is if the wet side keeps falling off or detaching. This kept happening to me for a few weeks. It would constantly fall off and I had to remount, but it wasn't until I took it out of the tank and decided to clean that it fell apart in my hands.

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Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been out of town for the last 2 weeks. Now that I am back I am going to contact Ecotech directly regarding this issue and report back with my results.

The old ones had failures too. I have two useless wet sides sitting on a shelf because of magnet splits. Ecotech can't sell parts anymore so I'm stuck with a $150 bill to replace them and after seeing threads like these I'm hesitant to do that.

I'm pretty sure this magnet thing isn't just a ETM problem. Every single powerhead I've ever owned has had the magnet swell up and disable the pump.
I just had to replace 2 Tunze impellers and a sealed magnet holder.
Eventually stuff just wears out.
Anybody that expects a device with moving parts to last forever isn't being reasonable.

I will say while not forever, I did have an MP20 that was one of the very first vorts made, and I just recently sold that as I did not feel the need for it after ordering my 2nd MP40QD, and it has not only run flawlessly all these years it was actually pretty quiet too, for an older regular/non QD vort.
I'm actually kicking myself in the butt for letting that go.
So, there is potential to get many good years out of one.

Yep, I've got a 4 yr old 40 stilling spinning happily with the original wetside.

So when cleaning our mp wave makers, is it easy to remove magnet from mounting? That way we could always check for a crack in advanced before the magnet rusting affects our tank?

I agree with this, the magnet could be a wear item. But let us buy the magnet for $20 like they used to sell instead of having to buy an entire new wetside

When did ETM sell impellers for the vortechs for $20?

Until a couple of years ago you could buy every single part, nut, screw, magnet, impeller, cage etc if they broke.


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With the changes that Photobucket made, I can't see Dr. Clifton's photos. However, I am wondering if my wet side MP40 did the same thing.

Here are the photos:

http://i.imgur.com/CAydas4l.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/aobzua1m.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OIu3nISm.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ga9NWxem.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Bvvl3Adm.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/0KVri9Ym.jpg

Some background on the above, I keep three wetsides (well, used to) but run two units. I will swap out one wetside at a time during routine cleanings in order to clean them off. I will soak them in a mixture of water and a splash of vinegar for a half hour to an hour and then soak in regular water till I clean with a toothbrush. This one had sat dry for several weeks after going through that cleaning process.

When I put the wetside back on, it kept falling into the tank. It would not stay on when I turned the power on. After thinking for a while that I wasn't setting it on there straight, and having to pick it up off of the bottom of the tank, I finally realized that the propeller was not spinning at all.

So, it would hold magnetically, but when I turned on the power the dry side tried to turn the wet side and rattle it would fall off.

Yep, pretty much the same. I saw the pics a few weeks ago. How old was it and do you know date of manufacture? I keep a close eye on mine now.

Yeah, that's how I noticed it with mine. I would turn it on and it would rattle off. I popped it open and noticed the crack/rusting. Contact Ecotech support, they were super helpful in replacing mine.

Thanks guys! I'll have to dig through my bills to try to get an idea of how old it could be. Pretty sure that I bought both sets at the same time. However, I bought the one wet side later. Not sure which wet side failed, as I've been cycling them.

Wanted to give a shout out to EcoTech. I called them last Thursday and received the replacement unit yesterday. Great customer service!

http://i.imgur.com/apXZD0I.jpg

I went through the exact same thing you guys did. All sps, LPS died. Some of my sps colonies are 20" long. Lots of them are with me for 4 years. Some fish died too. EcoTech was nice enough to replace the wet side for me. Problem is it took me a long time to figure out what really went wrong. I kept changing water but wasn't really helpful. Just wish someone can post this as a sticker. Hopefully can help people here.

I had the exact same thing happens to me. Had stuff dying in my tanks as well with no idea and finally saw that my MP40qd wetside magnet was rusted. Don't know which is worse, having electrical cable in the water or rusted magnets sitting in the tank for a while before you actually realize that there has been rust circulating in you system for who knows how long. Unfortunately if you do not realize that prior to the warranty passing, your screwed. BTW, when I was using Tunzes this never occurred. Not saying that it won't happen on Tunze as well, but my experience with them for over 7 years of use was phenomenal. Wish I had keep those just in case.