Frustrated with Vortech

[Der_Iron_Chef]

So, I hooked my newly-acquired Vortech up to the side of my newly-acquired aquarium yesterday. Easy peasy, lemon squeazey.

But, honestly, the noise bothered me. I never seemed to be able to hit the "sweet spot" and get it to just "hum". Today it randomly started emitting a high-pitched squeak/squeal that obviously wasn't okay with me. I thought maybe it had to be the gasket vibrating against the glass.

So I took it all apart tonight, and discovered that two of the three rubber "pins" that hold the motor assembly and pin spacer together were sort of bent. I tried to put it back together carefully, and put it back on the tank, and all was good. No squeak/squeal, and the quietest its ever been!

BUT. Now it's constantly overheating. It will run on Lagoon Random for a minute or so, and then overheat and stop itself. This has been repeating itself for the last hour or so. I've read the manual, and it says that this is possibly due to a misalignment.

So I'm wondering....do I have to live with either a squeak/squeal or a constantly overheating pump? These can't be my only options.

Grrrr.

[Drock169]

if its possible to exchange I would, the vortech at J&L runs silent

[Stones]

I've had a few similar issues with my vortech pumps in the past. My problems however were due to ecotech constantly "upgrading" the replacement parts. In the end, with the most up to date configuration of parts, my pump runs near silently accept for a slight hum that gets drowned out by the rest of the aquarium noise.

Check to make sure that you have the pin spacer properly aligned for your aquarium glass thickness. The only other thing that could be giving you greif would be the plastic or teflon washer located between the magnet and the wet frame. I was told by ecotech that the thicker version of the washer was ONLY to be used on 3/4" glass, but my pump would overheat and make more noise if I didn't use the thicker washer (as opposed to the thin teflon one), yet my glass is only 5/8".

Also, are you sure the pump is overheating and not just turning itself off. I noticed once I installed my wave drivers, if I started a pump on either reef crest or lagoonal mode, with the velocity anywhere above 50%, the pump would turn on, then shut off quickly, wait a few seconds, then repeat the cycle without ever fully operating. Must be an issue with the wave driver "thinking" its not aligned properly due to the rapid velocity change. The only way I was able to avoid this problem was to start on the lowest velocity, then slowly increase it all the while adjusting the wetface as soon as any noises were emitted.

Hope the info helps. The pumps definately take a bit of work to get setup, but once you do find that "sweet spot" and ensure the wet face is assembled correctly, it should operate nominally for quite some time. I had one run silently for over a year without ever having to remove the wetface.

[digital-audiophile]

Drew, It could just be a bad unit. I've been running mine for almost two months now and have not had a single problem with it.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.

I think it's a matter of these "bent" pins....I must've bent them when I changed the pin spacer around to match the thickness of my glass. I left the pump off all night, and just tried again....and I *think* I got the pins all inserted correctly. Crossing my fingers!

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Yup, it's working now. MUCH cooler to the touch than before! *phew*