28g Nano Cube Pump Upgrade Fail

frgarcia · 05/08/2013, 11:13 PM

A year ago I had to tear down my beloved Nano Reef, when I got divorced and moved out of my house Finally I've gotten a place where the tank can go back up and I was quite excited to get it back up and going with a clean slate. My now month old Nano Cube 28g HQI, has been coming along quite well now and the other day I thought that I'd add a circulation pump to alleviate dead spots and make the tank a little more SPS friendly. So yesterday I purchased a MaxiJet1200 to set up with the circulation adapter setup and impeller... WHAT A JOKE! The ungodly noise that came out of it when I plugged it in was beyond belief, so I broke it back down, assuming I had put something together wrong. After 3X, I decided that it wasn't my assembly skills, but the fact that the impeller design was complete crap. I then began to attempt to modify another impeller to possibly come up with a fix for this issue. 1 hour later, the problem was clear, its the play between the 2 parts of the impeller and the unsmooth rotation of the magnetic motor, that causes the loud chattering, and no amount of dampening or shimming or adjusting can fix it, plus. the play is needed to start the impeller rotating in the correct direction, because of the magnetic fields properties.... ANYWAY.... After seeing that this was a known problem on several forums and not a faulty unit, I thought that I may as well use the pump as an upgraded flow pump, seeing the pump ran quietly when setup with the original powerhead design. I had also just added a JBJ NanoZAPP inline UV sterilizer to the right side chamber. Figured I'd then stop by Petco tomorrow on my lunch break and get another to replace the other stock pump. So I set the pump up and put it in the right chamber and let it run. As I sat watching TV, I noticed that while the pump ran quietly when running, upon initial start up, the pump made a snapping noise. I went in, moved it around, checked all parts of the setup to ensure there was no contact with any parts of the tank, causing this noise. Nothing... Once again, the fault lay in the pump and impeller itself. At this point I was so frustrated that I cleaned up the stock pump that's probably 6 years old and running strong and quiet as day 1, reinstalled it in the tank, threw the MaxiJet in my box of spare parts, and am just gonna invest in a MP10 for circulation and leave it at that. Long story short, don't waste your time and money, once Marineland made the merge the MaxiJet product went to crap, but then again I'm sure a handful of you will love to say you could've told me that.

05/08/2013, 11:13 PM	#1
frgarcia Registered Member Join Date: May 2013 Location: Long Island Posts: 21	28g Nano Cube Pump Upgrade Fail A year ago I had to tear down my beloved Nano Reef, when I got divorced and moved out of my house Finally I've gotten a place where the tank can go back up and I was quite excited to get it back up and going with a clean slate. My now month old Nano Cube 28g HQI, has been coming along quite well now and the other day I thought that I'd add a circulation pump to alleviate dead spots and make the tank a little more SPS friendly. So yesterday I purchased a MaxiJet1200 to set up with the circulation adapter setup and impeller... WHAT A JOKE! The ungodly noise that came out of it when I plugged it in was beyond belief, so I broke it back down, assuming I had put something together wrong. After 3X, I decided that it wasn't my assembly skills, but the fact that the impeller design was complete crap. I then began to attempt to modify another impeller to possibly come up with a fix for this issue. 1 hour later, the problem was clear, its the play between the 2 parts of the impeller and the unsmooth rotation of the magnetic motor, that causes the loud chattering, and no amount of dampening or shimming or adjusting can fix it, plus. the play is needed to start the impeller rotating in the correct direction, because of the magnetic fields properties.... ANYWAY.... After seeing that this was a known problem on several forums and not a faulty unit, I thought that I may as well use the pump as an upgraded flow pump, seeing the pump ran quietly when setup with the original powerhead design. I had also just added a JBJ NanoZAPP inline UV sterilizer to the right side chamber. Figured I'd then stop by Petco tomorrow on my lunch break and get another to replace the other stock pump. So I set the pump up and put it in the right chamber and let it run. As I sat watching TV, I noticed that while the pump ran quietly when running, upon initial start up, the pump made a snapping noise. I went in, moved it around, checked all parts of the setup to ensure there was no contact with any parts of the tank, causing this noise. Nothing... Once again, the fault lay in the pump and impeller itself. At this point I was so frustrated that I cleaned up the stock pump that's probably 6 years old and running strong and quiet as day 1, reinstalled it in the tank, threw the MaxiJet in my box of spare parts, and am just gonna invest in a MP10 for circulation and leave it at that. Long story short, don't waste your time and money, once Marineland made the merge the MaxiJet product went to crap, but then again I'm sure a handful of you will love to say you could've told me that.