What are your favorite powerheads/wavemakers?

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Lampshade

I hate to say... but i LOVE my Coralife DC5800's. They've run non stop in a fast pulse for close to a year now. I haven't had to clean them, and they are dead silent. They push the same water as the others, there was a comparison out there somewhere, can't find the site right now. And the best part... lifetime warranty and half the cost of the others. I would never recommend any other Coralife products I've owned, I've had their skimmer and hated the thing, but these things have been great, I'm very very happy with my purchase.

Yeah, I have those too, and for almost a year now. Just bought another set for $229 in the US, for my other tank. Hard to beat that price for what you get.

I did have a problem, though, on the first set, as they stopped once, and were getting a bit noisy. When I took them apart, I noticed quite bit of play on the shaft inside the impeller assembly. I emailed Coralife with my findings, and they mailed out another set of pumps. So, they are definitely good on their warranty.

Not sure if this happened due to a defect, or my own doing. I had the problem shortly after having them apart for cleaning, and didn't notice then that they were worn. It's possible when I reassembled the impeller, I did not properly seat the shaft in the rubber bushings on the front, which would allow the shaft some play at that end. I also ran mine pretty hard, using the turbulence mode set at 10 seconds, so a lot of ramping up and down. Made for lots of action in the tank, but perhaps might be hard on the pumps.

Now, I am just going to leave them alone, and only clean the outside as required. Also changed the turbulence mode to ramp up and down at longer intervals.

They sure do flow a lot of water though, and yes, very quiet, when working properly.