quietest return pump

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Yeah it's a RD2000 and is a skimmer pump.

I was under the impression the pumps were practically noiseless and myself and others have been suprised to find this isn't always the case. The issues I've read about may have primarily been skimmer pumps I can't recall. But the userbase is super small and I've personally read of enough issues in the forum to question the over-hyped quality (imo) of their pumps.

Skimmers are a funny thing, honestly no matter what type of skimmer you have you will have issues with it. This is because skimmer performance is based on so many variables we can't even begin to explain them. For example if I put my hand in my tank for a just a couple seconds my skimmer will stop working properly for a few minutes, and that's just one example. I use to build custom skimmers which replicated BKs but I soon quit because of the issues I had to deal with. I use to test the crap out of them and they would work just fine but as soon as the customer would get it, nothing but problems. I also run a BK skimmer and it is certainly the best skimmer I've used and certainly the quietest but it still makes noise, just less than everything else.

As far as price is concerned I honestly don't think you could make the same products for less. I work in manufacturing and machine design, I know what CNC machining costs and what would be involved in making these products, honestly the price isn't that bad and the quality is better than anything else. The problem is that not everyone sees the need for the extra quality, for example their tolerance is 0.005mm!! That is absolutely ridiculous but it sure is cool. If I asked our machine shop to do that they would laugh at first and then come up with a quote so high we would never go through with it.

I don't think the user base is very small, the Canadian distributor can't even keep these pumps in stock, they are usually sold before they arrive. It took about 5 months to get mine. The thing is you don't generally hear positive feedback, but you certainly hear negative. In addition when people pay more they expect more however the relationship isn't linear but rather exponential. For example Hyundai owners don't complain very much about their cars but BMW owners complain all the time. Price aside, BMW is a better car but yet you actually hear more complaints about BMW than you do about Hyundai. It's a funny thing but it's human nature. Nobody is going to take the time to post on such a forum saying "Hey my pump is working great, no issues what so ever".

So skimmers aside, the RD return pump is a good pump and to me, well worth the money. It might not be for everyone but if you care more about noise and quality over price a RD pump may be for you