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Reminder, clean your pumps


Dan H

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Just a friendly reminder to clean your pumps if it's been more than a few months.

I had my Gyre's running at 100% for periods and noticed that the flow was really not that much... I think it had been somewhere between 2-3 months since they were last cleaned so I pulled them out and gave a good toothbrush scrubbing + butter knife scraping off the coraline. WOOHOO! Now they're pushing some water! Stirred up a bunch of detritus that had settled.

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Every 3 months should be a standard. I can't believe I haven't done that for most of the years I've been keeping tanks but I started that this year and what a difference it makes!

I actually have 4 pumps since the Jaebo pumps are so cheap and I rotate out two clean ones and let the other two soak in vinegar to clean them and then store for the next swap.

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I have MP40QD's and I keep finding the wet sides in the sand every morning. Talked to Ecotech marine and they suggested putting some silicon grease on the ceramic shaft. Tried it, and still found one on the sand this morning. Not sure whats happening at night. Its as if them somehow become uncoupled and get thrown off the glass while I sleep.

They look clean, and I put them in a bowl of vinegar last week.

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To add to that... I had to get the extra magnet kits for my Gyre's because of the 1" acrylic. The could possibly hold with the default magnets, but it wouldn't be holding by much. A nice bump and they would jar loose.

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Oddly they ran without issue for months since new up until a couple weeks ago and found them both in the sand one morning. One of the Dry sides is getting replaced for the second time. (Its loud) Since it usually happens at night when they're at 15% constant I bumped it up to 20% to see if that helps.

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I run my pumps at 30% at night so my fish don't get tossed around while sleeping and I like to think the slower flow allows for plankton to swim around easier and for my hungry coral polyps to catch them better. All just theory though.

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The ocean doesn't stop at night.

I think strong flow at night is great for the corals... They have their polyps open nicely, and this way they get more water passing by with the potential of more food for them.

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My skimmer and reactor pumps seem to suffer from slowing down much more than my return or in tank pumps, biopellet pump by far the worst resulting from film as the pellets are consumed.

lower flow = more time to accumulate.... well, except the skimmer pump, that accumulated because of the air contact and such.
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