Dary's tank!

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Sniperhank said:
I LOVE mine. An amazing piece of equipment. It has never need re-calibrated...though I've done it anyway.
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Hank , yup I was kinda hesitant at first cuz of the cost of the unit but now I couldn't imagine being without it


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Well not much going on out here , I finally replaced my Di resin in my Rodi unit ( overdue ) and she's now showing the big 0's going out into the pwc barrel ,... :) The ats algae which started off a little slowly has been producing gobs of the harvestable green gooey stuff ,... I nuked a few aptasia the other day with the new electric " wand" and so far no grow back that I can see ,.. Seems like there's been a shortage of the high capacity gfo the last few weeks thru various vendors online ,..ill have to check the status of that sometime here soon , I'm thinking of replacing my five/six year old mag 12 return pump with a new one sometime before my next Hawaiian trip , she's been running along without a hitch for sooooo long without any cleaning or any interruptions that I'm getting worried that one day she'll just get calciumed up and quit , more than likely that'll be the time I board the plane too leave ,...otherwise ,all good


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Great! My Triton testing got me back into good shape again. I vastly underestimated the amount of calcium and Mg a acro colony that weights thirty pounds can absorb.


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At thirty pounds you're lucky it doesn't raid your refrigerator :)


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It is rather amazing to watch a organism create that much rock from seawater. That's 30 pounds of calcium and Mg it's absorbed over 5 years of growth.


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Gregcoyote said:
It is rather amazing to watch a organism create that much rock from seawater. That's 30 pounds of calcium and Mg it's absorbed over 5 years of growth.


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Never really thought of it that way before ,... Totally amazing !!! ,....id still hide the steaks tho


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I think it doesn't like steak very much. It just loves minerals though. It is a amazing process that we get to see every day from beginning to now, something no diver experiences.


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Wow,..just realized I haven't posted anything here for weeks ,... About the only on going problem I'm having with the whole tank setup is that whenever there's an interruption in the tank's power then my aging pumps do not wanna start up again without some help ,... The most recent activity has been with my danner 7 pump which powers my gfo reactor along with the carbon reactor and the ats ,... This pump is prob 7 years old and runs 24/7 ,...a slow build up of calcium or general crud usually clogs it up just enough to prevent it from restarting after being idle for awhile, sometimes a rap on it with a heavy tool will get it rolling again but sometimes one must disassemble it and clean it all up with vinegar and elbow grease before it'll get running again ,..I'm sure that the internal brushes or whatever kicks it off are probably on its last leg.
To be on the safe side I'm going to start replacing a few power heads and eventually my danner 12 which is my return pump,.... That particular pump hasn't missed a beat in the last 5-7 years since its been installed,...but here again ,on the side of caution I'll be replacing that pump before my next trip to Hawaii in September .
Today , the mag 7 pump was swapped out and the old pump is now running in a bucket full of vinegar solution . ,other than that most everything seems to be going along rather well, most of the coral seem happy along with the local residents


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Any of those pumps could probably be cleaned and new brushes and starting capacitor exchanged. If the pump isn't sealed permanently. A motor repair shop would do it for very little expense.


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Gregcoyote said:
Any of those pumps could probably be cleaned and new brushes and starting capacitor exchanged. If the pump isn't sealed permanently. A motor repair shop would do it for very little expense.


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Click to expand...

what brushes and starting capacitors are you guys talking about?
the mag drive pumps are electromagnet drives.
There are no brushes, it is simply a coil of copper wire wrapped around a magnet whose polarity flips in accordance with the cycle of ac current.
If it gets too hot and melts the insulation around the copper wire that comprises the coils it will short out and stop working.

In theory, they should work indefinitely as there are no "moving parts" to wear out in the motor block.
and they are permanently sealed. the whole mess is encased in epoxy, that's why they are waterproof.

the lifeguard and similar external direct drive pumps have brushes and capacitors, but they also pull a LOT more electricity and generate much greater head pressure.
 
PB_Smith said:
what brushes and starting capacitors are you guys talking about?
the mag drive pumps are electromagnet drives.
There are no brushes, it is simply a coil of copper wire wrapped around a magnet whose polarity flips in accordance with the cycle of ac current.
If it gets too hot and melts the insulation around the copper wire that comprises the coils it will short out and stop working.

In theory, they should work indefinitely as there are no "moving parts" to wear out in the motor block.
and they are permanently sealed. the whole mess is encased in epoxy, that's why they are waterproof.

the lifeguard and similar external direct drive pumps have brushes and capacitors, but they also pull a LOT more electricity and generate much greater head pressure.
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Yes,I realize they're a sealed unit and repair is out of the question ,.. Not sure if buying a new impeller unit would help or not BUT in my case , yes they seem to run forever but once they stop ,MINE need some help getting going again ,.. Last year on my trip to Hawaii the electric company decided it was time to flip the switch from the telephone pole connections to the underground connection ( that was on day one of my trip ) well I came home to a pump that failed to restart so I was without any reactors working for 10 days ,needless to say things were kinda messed up , that's why I've decided to replace it with a new one , this particular pump has done this numerous times,.....kinda untrustworthy


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I was discussing conventional pumps that cost more than $100, not immersed ones. As Dary mentioned the impellers get accumulated calcium in them. Polishing the magnet on the impeller with some fine grit sandpaper, then wiping it very clean can sometimes bring them back.


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Gregcoyote said:
I was discussing conventional pumps that cost more than $100, not immersed ones. As Dary mentioned the impellers get accumulated calcium in them. Polishing the magnet on the impeller with some fine grit sandpaper, then wiping it very clean can sometimes bring them back.


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Click to expand...

Ok, just confused at your reply because all the pumps he mentioned are mag drives.

by virtue of their design, electro magnets such as are used in these pumps have a "dead spots" where the polarity is essentially neutral and momentum keeps the impeller moving past those spots.
If your pump isn't delivering enough voltage to the coil and/or the impeller is dirty and stops in one of those "dead spots" it can often prevent it from "turning over" when power is restored. This happens more frequently the smaller the motor is and it's relatively small magnetic field. I have one small fountain pump that stalls like this EVERY time it is powered off and on.
If you take the impeller cover off and see the impeller "quivering" and there is nothing blocking it, it's stalled in the dead spots.
That is probably what is going on with yours, Dary. Over time it may have dropped how much current is being sent through the coil and or build-up of stuff on the impeller magnet.

also don't overlook the possibility that you got one with an impeller that doesn't fit just right. My mag 5 made TONS of noise new out of the box, the impeller wasn't balanced right so it was banging around as it rotated and a few times "jammed" on me.
Replaced the impeller and it is fine now, but those darn impellers cost $18 and up!!
 
Very much appreciate the feedback !! I might try a new impeller assembly one day on the old mag 7 but for now she'll be a back up unit ,... I just hate the feeling of being thousands of miles away from your tank and you know you can fix things in a few minutes and you're helpless to do anything


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So after a week of soaking and running in a bucket of vinegar solution the mag 7 pump cleaned up nicely , almost looks new,...I had taken out the impelled unit and lightly sanded the magnet to clear it of any contaminates ( as suggested by Greg ) but she still stalls on start up , there's a little gouge inside the main housing where once upon a time maybe a small rock or something got wedged between the impeller magnet and the space provided in the main housing , the gouge is very noticeable when feeling it with a finger ,.not sure if this was causing or helping with the stalling at start up ,...but she's now in the pile of spare parts or "in case of emergency " only objects.
I also, ran one of my powerheads in the same solution and she looks beautiful, I'll slowly swap out a powerheads with a freshly cleaned up unit when they stall or just get a build up of growth and needs a major cleaning .


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