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Pump maintenance

doliver

doliver

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I've lost a couple of pumps in the last year, probably at least due in part to the fact that I don't do much preventative maintenance on them and they eventually seize up on me. I do a vinegar bath thing about once every six months for my return pump and maybe a little more often for powerheads because they get more algae/coralline buildup in the display.

What maintenace/schedule do other folks use?

And what's the average lifespan of decent quality pumps? (My Mag return quit on me after maybe 3 years, and I just lost my Dolphin skimmer pump after about 4 years).
 
IIRC the rate at which precipitation of calcium or alkalinity onto a pumps impeller (where the damage will happen) is related to how hot the pump gets, hotter it gets the faster stuff builds up. So don't think you could put a rule of thumb on pumps in general.

That being said, I think I might give my QuietOne 4k a bath when I do a water change, also going to switch sumps... hopefully that all goes well.
 
Well I just spent the past 4 hours swapping sumps, rewiring (making it clean with zipties rather than a tangle of cords and whires), and sure enough took my impeller out and it's in vinegar over night :D... probably not necessary for that long, but might as well give it a good once over. It really wasn't terribly bad the shaft came out without much fuss, I've had really bad ones before where ceramic shaft is literally fused to the impeller.
 
I just cleaned all 8 of my Tunze streams yesterday, after been running for about a year. Those suckers had some good coralline build up on them.

A weird thing that i found with my two 6200 prop assembly. Both props were deterioting, the empellers are both brittle and eaten up. These only happened on the 6200 props, the older 6100s and the new 6055s are all ok no sign of wear or damage.

Have anyone encountered this issue before? I will post photos tonight.
 
sfsuphysics said:
IIRC the rate at which precipitation of calcium or alkalinity onto a pumps impeller (where the damage will happen)
Click to expand...

Hmm, now I'm kind of confused as to what happened because the impeller looks like it's in very good shape. But when I plug it in, nothing happens at all. Just dead. I was thinking of trying to find another pump body to use this same impeller in. What kind of things can go wrong with the actual pump?
 
The epoxy can expand and crack due to heat causing the magnet to and connections to be exposed to saltwater. Or the impeller housing can overheat and warp causing vibration and eventually seizing the pump.
 
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