I used to have my MJ's hooked up to christmas light timer plugs (they're like 99 cents around christmastime). If this wasn't a test of a MJ in action I don't know what was. They cycled on and off for about 2 seconds each. I'm really surprised they didn't burn out. I used the timer plugs for about a year before I upgraded to Tunze 6060s.

Anyway, not that MJs can survive anything but I was always really impressed with them. I just wished they pushed more water :biggrin:

The only issue that caused me to take my "upgraded" MJ's off a wavemaker was not that after a while they would burn out or whatever - but that after a while, the little swing arm that holds the pump to the glass magnet bracket would break. It seems that every time the pump would start, the pump would shake just ever so slightly. After a few months of this the little swing arm literally just snaps in two, and then you have a pump dangling by the power cord, facing down, cheerfully starting and stopping and blowing sand all over the place. I just run the upgrade kits on all the time now. The wavemaker flow was awesome but not worth buying a new kit every few months just to replace the swing arm. For $20 or whatever the cost of the upgrade kit, you can't beat what you get out of the MJ. If you have the MJ's already then it's a slam dunk. If you don't, then maybe look at the Koralia's or Tunze's instead because they're probably a better option than buying the powerhead, the upgrade kit AND the magnets all separately.

I've been running a Tunze 6055 (not sure of the model -- the smallest non-controllable Tunze) in my FW. Save for power failures it's been on and running without so much as a cleaning in well over a year. Sometimes I pull plant leafs out of it but that's not really a "cleaning" per se. It does make a little bit of a rattling noise which I wish it didn't, but other than that I can't say I've had any problems with it.

I haven't tried the Koralia's yet but that's because they weren't available to buy when I was looking. Can't beat the price so I'd probably try them if I was looking for something. I like the Koralia nano's, I almost switched from Seio to one of those for my 20g until I realized I'm still getting several times over the flow out of my 820 than I would get out of a single Koralia, so although it's large and bulky, I'm sticking with the Seio.

I run 2 koralia 4's and a k3 in my large tank and when I started a nano tank I wanted to try out the Tunze ph's so I picked up 2 of the 6025, took out some plastic cutters and modded them and they are amazing. I wish I had the money to buy 2 6101 for my larger tank. If I ever start another tank or have the money to put new ph in my big tank I will go with Tunze all the way. Rock solid products and they put out amazing flow. Cost more but from what I've seen its well worth the extra bux!!