Vortech Failure

[Madreefer]

Ya I cleaned the wet side with vinegar. It's definetly the dry side. It's a rattling sound and I tried it with out the dry side attached for a second and the noise does'nt change. It appears as if the rotating part that has the screw I asked about is not in line 'cause when it powers down it looks like it is out of round. Thanks, I guess I wont be pulling any stickers off to adjust the screw since it will most likely void the warranty.

[BlueTang<3]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1901337

[DiverDude]

There are just waaay too many problems with these Vortechs for the price they charge for them. Not to say that at half the price (where they should be priced) it would be any more acceptable for them to fail like this.

Makes me want a wavebox.

[globaldesigns]

Originally Posted by DiverDude

There are just waaay too many problems with these Vortechs for the price they charge for them. Not to say that at half the price (where they should be priced) it would be any more acceptable for them to fail like this.

Makes me want a wavebox.

You need to try them Mark... I do love mine overall and even though they are expensive, they are worth the money. The settings on the Vortechs do more than any wavebox can do. Sorry, but a wavebox just doesn't compare in my opinion, in areas of creating undertows, exporting of nutrients and elimination of dead spots.

Edit: also in regards to service, I can say they are great, quite comparable to Hydor.

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by globaldesigns

You need to try them Mark... I do love mine overall and even though they are expensive, they are worth the money. The settings on the Vortechs do more than any wavebox can do. Sorry, but a wavebox just doesn't compare in my opinion, in areas of creating undertows, exporting of nutrients and elimination of dead spots.

Edit: also in regards to service, I can say they are great, quite comparable to Hydor.

I don't think waveboxes ever claimed to do any of that though, they were just designed to create a more natural wave motion in a tank. I can definitely say that I get way more intense (like ridiculously intense) polyp extension with my wavebox than with the vortech (not to say that the vortech doesn't do all that you say but then again so does my tunze 6080 and it was a third the price of a vortech).

[mike31154]

If it's under warranty and a new dry side is in the mail I wouln't mess with it. Clearly there's a problem somewhere in there if the noise is getting worse.

As far as 'way too many problems', I have two MP40s that have been running great, one for over two years and the other for well over a year. There are only two pump/powerhead manufacturers that stick their necks out by having their own forums on RC and that's EcoTech and Tunze. So yes, you're going to read about problems on these forums but you have to remember for every problem there are likely thousands of these products running without a hitch. There were some issues with my original MP40, but it was a Gen 1 with the old magnet and it was a relatively low cost fix. I also sent one dry side in due to an odd noise even though it was running fine, but since it was under warranty and EcoTech service is excellent, I decided to have them look at it.

One of the advantages of the VorTech is the small footprint in your display, I can't imagine replacing my MP40s with something as large as a wavebox.

[Madreefer]

Dont get me wrong. I really like my Vortech and they have been great to deal with. Just was curious if there was some sort of temporary fix. Really dont want to put my big bulky Koralia in while waiting for the new part to arrive. Thanks for the link Wes, Inever think of going to RC as I think they are a bunch of nozzles.

[don.ald]

service is excellent, no doubt. but they are always being serviced

[paddyob]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

Inever think of going to RC as I think they are a bunch of nozzles.

+1.

I tried to post once to buy a light from someone.... but admin told me that until I had "50 meaningful posts" I was not able to access buy and sell?!?!?!

Cudos to Canreef. RC sucks.

[DiverDude]

Originally Posted by globaldesigns

You need to try them Mark... I do love mine overall and even though they are expensive, they are worth the money. The settings on the Vortechs do more than any wavebox can do. Sorry, but a wavebox just doesn't compare in my opinion, in areas of creating undertows, exporting of nutrients and elimination of dead spots.

Edit: also in regards to service, I can say they are great, quite comparable to Hydor.

No argument on the product's functionality, just it's reliability. These pumps are meant to replace multiple smaller pumps which, when they work, is great. However when they fail, they represent a single point of failure that means NO FLOW until it's fixed. For those of us who upgrade from other powerheads that we KEPT, we can hobble along. For those who either jumped right into one of these or sold their old powerheads......well....that can be a real problem.

These products are priced at a real premium and as such should represent premium value -which, for a mission-critical component, means RELIABILITY.

I'd be curious to see some hard numbers on how many of these have been sold and how many have had issues. From my perspective, there's an unusually high number of problems but for all I know, the problems represent 1% of all the units in the field -a pretty respectable number from a manufacturing point of view. Now we're never going to see those numbers so we only have perceptions to go on.

As someome starting to plan for a larger tank in the future and who was planning on putting an MP40 in it, I have to tell you, I'm pretty nervous about spending $500 on a pump and have it fail 1 month after the warranty is over. I'm pretty handy and have a full shop so changing the bearings doesn't scare me but the point is that for $500, I shouldn't HAVE to.