External Pump Noise

[smnw10]

I picked up a used 100 gallon RR tank, sump, pump recently. Owner said all operated just fine. The pump is an Iwaki MD-55. I'm setting up the tank as a reef and the flow of this pump is over 1000 GPH, from what I've read this should be enough turnover.

I've only ever had submersible pumps and the largest tank was a 58. When I finished the plumbing and added water and ran the pump, it's loud. How loud? Well, loud enough to notice and hear in the other room. It's a vibration sound and if you touch any of the plumbing below you can feel it vibrating, and you can feel the stand vibrate slightly as well. When you cut the power you hear it "wind down" and when you power it up you hear it "wind up" as it gets going. Are these pumps supposed to be essentially silent the way my Rio 2100 submersible pump is and all my powerheads are or are they supposed to make some noise?

But...the tank isn't full of water, I just had water in the overflows and sump. With the lid on the tank the sound was less. With the tank full of water will it dampen the sound? Will they quiet down after the pump has been running and warms up? I only had it running maybe 5 minutes with reduced flow.

Stick your head under the stand and it's extremely loud under there.

It's going in a new office so I just need to figure out if it's the pump and if so get a new one in there in the next week. If these pumps are this noisy, then I'll have to go with 2 in sump return pumps because those I've had have been completely silent.

thanks!
John

[neilanh]

It's going to make some noise.

I've never used a pump that large, but I do have a Mag-18 that was making a similar vibrating noise. I placed a kitchen sponge underneath it so it wasn't sitting directly on the stand and this made a huge difference.

[smnw10]

I know you're not supposed to run them dry, we ran it for about 10 seconds dry, outside of the stand, sitting on carpet, not hooked up to the plumbing, and the noise level was what I would have expected. But sitting in the cabinet, hooked up to the PVC, everything just vibrates a little making noise.

I'll try putting something under the pump but even when I lifted the pump just off the bottom, the noise level didn't change at all. It seems to be vibrating through the pipe.

does sound dampening foam really work if I lined the inside of the tank with it?

[waynotcars]

I run an Iwaki 40 rlt and there is only a quiet whir of the cooling fan. Either there is something wrong with the pump itself or the way it's hooked up. My Iwaki is virtually silent.