My new main pump!!
by
, 01-07-2013 at 07:52 PM (2144 Views)
My newest purchase for my reef tank was a new main circulation pump. The Rio Hyper Flow 32 was on its last legs. Surprising as it may, this pump last 7 years with very minimal maintenance. It finally got to the point when I would turn off the pump for feedings, I prayed it would turn on again. So I decided a replacement was necessary.
Now mind you, I am a cheap or rather as I call it "frugal" with my money. I wanted the pump to be energy efficient, yet powerful enough to meet my demand of my 210 gallon tank. I wanted to run a manifold and get rid of all the Maxijets power heads in there as well. I looked at Red Dragons, Water Blasters, Rio, you name a pump I checked it out. So what did I decided on?
A pond pump called Laguna Max Flow 2900. The outside cage comes off and it looks like a normal water pump. I would have purchased this locally but could not a dealer in Central Florida. So Ebay it was for 130 dollars later. The only main issue with the pump was it is fitted for barbed fittings only, not PVC. I heard they sell an adapter but decided to come up with my own solution. As you can see it the pictures that I basically attach a small piece of 1.5 inch flex tubing to PVC.
Now to the pump. WOW- this thing is a beast. Its a little bigger than the HY32 but it rocks it in terms of performance and watts used. According to my watts meter, it runs around 100 watts.
As you can see, I am using a hybrid method to plumbing. Not 100% PVC, not 100% flex tubing. All and in all the pump seems to be a great buy. It is dead silent, low power, and moves a ton of water.
Happy Reefing!!