Looking at a remora pro any cons?

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marcinek101

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
18
I the start of a 75 gallon mini reef, I am looking for a good quiet skimmer. All signs seem to point to the remora as a good hang on skimmer. Is this true?
 
i just got mine hooked up, and the pump is really loud it is a mag drive 3. I installed the overflow and it was like the pump was clicking against it. I removed the overflow box and i can still hear the pump. It almost sounds like it is grinding a little bit. Will this go away after the 48 hour break in?
 
marcinek101 said:
i just got mine hooked up, and the pump is really loud it is a mag drive 3. I installed the overflow and it was like the pump was clicking against it. I removed the overflow box and i can still hear the pump. It almost sounds like it is grinding a little bit. Will this go away after the 48 hour break in?

This sounds like a pump issue and NOT the skimmer itself. I've got the Remora Pro with a Mag3 also. Is your pump new? What you're describing sounds a lot like what happened with my pump a few months ago. It was about 6 months old at the time. The impeller's little rubber bushings where it is supported seemed to have a bit too much clearance in their housings and would cause the impeller rattle. A quick "hot-glue" fix solved the problem for a few weeks, but eventually they worked loose again. I eventually solved the problem by buying a new impeller and replacing the whole thing.

(If you're scratching your head trying to figure out what I'm talking about, if you remove the 4 screws on the inlet/outlet housing of the pump, you'll find the impeller under that housing. Little fan looking thing with a magnet around a shaft.)

Here's my original post about the "rattle"...

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=96390&highlight=

The other possibility it that the rattle is coming from the pump vibrating off the back glass. I had this problem for a while until I hot-glued a piece of air line tubing onto the back of the pump to act as a bumper. Oh... and now that I'm remembering things, you could also be hearing some vibration coming from the screw-in adjustable plastic leveling feet on the bottom of the Remora, that rest against your back glass. I added a couple little felt sticky feet (like you'd put on the bottom of little knick-knacks that clutter up your shelves) on mine to take care of that.

The noise usually associated with "break-in" comes more from excessive bubbles. That will subside eventually. If your skimmer still seems noisy, try this little modification here...

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=96396

Now that I think of it, with all the "mods" to the Remora, you'd think I didn't like it. But I'd buy it again, if I had to do it over again. Relatively speaking, it's one of the quieter ones out there.

(Oh... and I ditched my "skimmer box" also... even before it went into the water! Seemed like a hokey mounting setup, and was too big. It's for sale in the "Classified" if anyone wants it! :lol: )
 
I will try sealing the bushings, the other thing i noticed s that the weight of the pump wants to drag the skimmer down. I was going to shim up the side opposite the pump since the screws in the back of the unit dont seem to do much.
 
Ahh... that reminds me...

The other thing I did was rotate the inlet/outlet housing of the Mag3 by 90 degrees. In the "as bought" configuration, the pump outlet is not centered about the center of gravity of the pump body itself... the heavy part. In other words, when you hang it from the tubing the pump tends to bend the tubing back toward the back glass of the tank. One thing you can do is shorten the tubing to make it stiffer. The other thing you can do is unscrew those four screws I mentioned earlier, and rotate the outlet housing 90 degrees so that the power cord is farthest from the back tank wall. This puts the outlet in line with the center of gravity, and the pump will hang more or less straight. In this configuration, I think the skimmer itself will sit even and you won't have to shim anything. Worth a shot while you have that housing off anyway!
 
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