A friedn of mine gave me a Zoo PS10 PH, it is such a great device, all you have to do it make sure the gears are clean so the PH can move and change current directions. Why is there such negative opinions on these devices?
im not familiar with them so i cant comment to much. but they are probably alot of maintance to keep working, prone to failure to due the many moving parts, and very low powered.
again, i have no insight into these, this is just my opinion after a short look into them, and you saying alot of peopel have negative comments
also keep in mind many people may say things, but you only haev one unit. so your problems may not have started yet, or they may not come at all, but one sample is not always the best to base the quality of a product. if most/many people have problems its likely you will in the future... again, this is a general statement, not specific to this powehead as i'm not familiar with this powehead
__________________
Show people you appreciate there advice, click the icon under there name and give them Reputation points
After hearing all the stories from people I run 2 of those and a Maxijet 1200 in my 20 just incase. But they really are neat little units if you can put them high enough on the tank to where they dont suck any sand in.
I liked them both while they worked well. Especially the Hydor FLO add-ons since I could pick my powerheads and service them independently. The problems I had came from the fact that it seemed like each time I broke them down for cleaning and vinegar soak, they went back together a bit looser and took a bit less time to need cleaning again. Eventually, the gear mechanisms would get to the "tick point" (where the rotation stops and all you get is a ticking because the gears are slipping) and no amount of cleaning, soaking, and rebuilding would change the behavior.
Perhaps others have had better experiences or perhaps a more premptive and regular cleaning schedule would work, but as cool as they are at first run, the cost of getting a new one every 6 mo to a year outweighs the niceness of the sweeping motion.
I wish someone would make a tracking system that you could mount on the side of the aquarium, put your own PH/stream pump on, and it would track back and forth across the tank to provide an out-of-the-water and more durable sweep motion.
Or, perhaps I should get off my rear and design one for myself ...
__________________ George
Smyrna, GA
25g reef
Coming Soon: 60g Ocea Cube (24"^3)
If you do vinegar dip, why would you need to take it apart? I would think you can dip and then just cleaning it out by running it in some water to get it cleaned?
Timinator, just curious how long you have had yours?
and regarding the vinegar, the vinegar will help loosen hard algae and gunk, but will not remove it, you need to break the pumps down to get everything out from inside.
analogy - you cant clean dishes just by soaking them in dish soap, you have to actually clean/spray/wipe away all the loosen up gunk
__________________
Show people you appreciate there advice, click the icon under there name and give them Reputation points
Hey Rob, the 3 zoo heads came from a 6 month old tank, the owner got divorced and sold the entire system and gave me the PH's.
I just think they are a great concept if I can get them to work reliably. Since they dont flow a wholelot, it's nice to be able to place them around a propagation tank without having to worry about things getting blown over.
Don't get me wrong. I like these things, too. I'm just conveying my experience as a possible reason why people blanket-reject these pumps. I don't reject them as useless, just potentially failure prone. I suspect that these mechanical-type solutions wear faster in high calcium tanks because of the tendency to plate out calcium on warmer parts such as pump mechanisms and heaters.
Vinegar is really only useful to loosen and dissolve calcium deposits and hard algae as Rob mentioned. To remove the other gunk that gets in pumps, some disassembly is needed.
My relatively recent foray into Kalk reactors has eaten impeller plastic at an impressive rate which supports the calcium theory.
__________________ George
Smyrna, GA
25g reef
Coming Soon: 60g Ocea Cube (24"^3)
yes, that is a very good point, calcium deposits much faster on warmer parts.
George, have you tried the maxijets? i use one for my Kalk top off. its been sitting in a bucket of kalk for months and has yet to be cleaned or to fail me, my old little rio had to be cleaned every week or two or it woudl not start..
__________________
Show people you appreciate there advice, click the icon under there name and give them Reputation points
George, have you tried the maxijets? i use one for my Kalk top off. its been sitting in a bucket of kalk for months and has yet to be cleaned or to fail me, my old little rio had to be cleaned every week or two or it woudl not start..
Yes. All my powerheads are maxijets. I don't have any powerheads in the tank anymore (unless you count Seios), but they're workhorses for salt mixing, water changes, etc. I haven't had a problem since my first impeller and that maxi was of an indeterminate age which means it may well have been a failure for other reasons, but it looked worn down. I have my stirring pump up on a small PVC riser to keep it out of the actual settled kalk and added a timer to mix twice a day instead of continuously. I think the continuous mixing was what did the impeller in after only 5-6 months or so.
__________________ George
Smyrna, GA
25g reef
Coming Soon: 60g Ocea Cube (24"^3)
I'm just conveying my experience as a possible reason why people blanket-reject these pumps.
it's not a so much "blanket rejection", but when lots of folks have the same results, it doesn't take long for word to get around. i thought the power sweep worked fine...WHEN IT WORKED. as you mentioned, they're very unreliable...it seemed like i spent more time disassembling it and coaxing it into working than just letting it run. it now resides in a landfill someplace.
that being said, i have since quit using PH's altogether. i prefer to design the flow into the tanx from the ground up. looks a lot cleaner and once it's done, is definitely more reliable.
Just an update on these PH's. I have gotten rod of all of them at this point. They all have started acting up at one point or another regardless of how much cleaning. So if your thinking about those, a Wavemaker with the Maxijet mod DavidP outlined on a thread would be the more reliable way to produce alternate currents.
icon under there name and give them Reputation points
Linear Mode
