Plumbing

Well, I finally finished installing the snapper pump. I learned a few things along the way and I'll try to give you as unbiased account as I can here.

First thing - I'm going to take a quick tangent here and report some about my personal experience with reeflo quality. I opened up my brand new reeflo pump and found the dart impeller cracked right through the middle upon arrival. It was as if someone had tightened it too much or it was subjected to an extreme temperature difference ...

Anyone know how to do this? I can't seem to find any info on the web about reefers doing this with their home pumps. I'm trying to figure out whether to use the snapper changeover on my reeflo pump and throttle it back or use the dart and let it run more wide open...

I installed a SMR around January/February this year and had heard reports that it may trigger a cyano bloom that would eventually subside. In my case, that worked out to be true. I gave it a little encouragement with a popular product called Chemi-clean. But then it came back a month later. Slowly, but steadily. I treated again and increased the flow in my SMR to make sure I wasn't getting any dead spots in the reactor. I'm currently in process of my fourth treatment this year - and as a guy ...

Going to replace my GEN X PCX40. I'm excited - I expect to see less power draw and more flow. So, the return hole in my sump is currently sized for a 1" return and now I need to enlarge it for a 2" return. I know there are many reeflo fans out there - what size return / bulkhead do you REALLY use? Any advice on how best to widen the hole? A 2.5" (or close) drill bit seems cost prohibitive.

For flow and power consumption reasons, I'm considering making a change for my main system pump from the PCX-55 to the Reeflo Dart. At first glance, it seems that I may be ?doubling? my flow with an 8' head - and potentially consuming far less wattage. I know the spec for the GENX pump (an Iwaki knockoff as far as I can tell) says something like 170W - but my experience has been more like ~220-240W. Currently, I use the pump to feed a manifold that serves my main tank, my skimmer, my fuge, frag ...