Ecotech Marine Vortech Pump

[chrisc]

http://www.aquariumspecialty.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=422

Way cool. Way Expensive...

Motor is on the outside. Drives the prop via a magnetic field through the glass.

Anyone try these babies out yet?

EDIT: They are not out yet... so I guess nobody has tried them ;p

 

[mchud]

i saw one the other day. i was not real impressed. decent flow, but the 2 halves never seemed to stay together. and try to touch the electrical motor part, wow was it hot. neat idea though.

 

[TomD]

That is way too much for PH for me. I would rather spend money on a good closed loop and maybe a few tunze nano streams for areas not getting enough.

 

[ScottM]

A nice unit.
they have had heat issues in the past, and controller problems. supposed to be fixed. AG has one on a display tank.

very neat concept, but IMO they should have worked out the bugs before introducing to the market rather than doing it at the expense of thier customer base.

 

[Greg Hiller]

One problem I see with these is that they cannot be angled since they have to sit square against the glass. I have my Tunze's angled to deflect off the glass and creat a random pattern. Not sure how important it is, but it is a limitation.

 

[ReeferMedic]

I was able to see one mast year at NERAC. The controller got a few drops of water on it and it stopped working. Not sure if they have worked out that particular bug, but that seems like it would be a problem, since the controllers are operating very close to the water.

 

[RayD]

RJDudek (Rob) has one in his tank. He likes it alot i think.

 

[starrfish]

The thing I find appealing about these is the batter backup. It is an additional $150 (plus the $350 for the pump), but you'd spend about that much for a good inverter and batteries. I saw one hooked up in Shallowwaters tank and it was creating some serious flow.

 

[focus]

Have 1 in my tank. Had all the first release issues. Bad wet-side and controller failure. Been working great for the last few months. They had some pin alignment problems as well which caused it to run hot. All the problems appear to be worked out.

 

[rjdudek]

I put a new one in the tank about a month ago. Not a single problem of any sort. The design is very nice, mine is running at about 50% speed currently and the motor is within 2 or 3 degrees of room temperature all the time. Virtually no heat on the dry side motor casing. It would be nice to have a 45 or 90 angle attachment to it, but it is smaller than the Seio it replaced and has better control options than any of the Tunze units. The 12v battery backup option is a great feature.

 

[RayD]

Seriously thinking about one. But I got a great deal on 2 maxi mods so I'm going to try that first.

Then a calcium reactor, then maybe the Vortek, then ... then ... then ...

Wait a minute, I'm seeing a pattern here. IT NEVER ENDS!!!

Ok have to go now and make the LFS rounds.

 

[rjdudek]

Keep going Ray, someone needs to keep feeding the equipment forum.

 

[Greg Hiller]

>The thing I find appealing about these is the battery backup<

FWIW, I've noticed that the problem with loosing electricity is usually the fish die from low oxygen. Although water movement would help some with this, there is actually not that much transfer of oxygen at the surface unless you are causing a lot of ripples at the surface. Air bubblers work much better for oxygen transfer during power outages. You could potentially set one of these up close enough to the surface so that when the main pump dies they are sucking in some air and blowing bubbles into the tank.

I've noticed that corals don't seem to care that much if the flow stops for a few hours (as long as the lights are off too), even if the dissolved oxygen in the tank gets low enough to kill a bunch of fish. IME, when the power comes back on the corals don't bat an eye.

 

[starrfish]

Thanks for that info Greg - I've often wondered if the air bubblers are the best solution for providing air for the fish, or would water movement be enough. I guess I'll just stick with all of my battery operated air bubblers - they worked like a charm last weekend when we lost power for a couple of hours during that huge rain storm.

 

[RayD]

I just had a four hour power outage this week in our building.

Used my good ol battery pump to make bubbles. Everyone is fine.