When I started my tank a little over 2 years ago I bought this return pump.
Hydor Seltz D 3200
Fairly priced, had the water flow I was looking for, was controllable, oh and a 2 year warranty. It worked so well that I bought a second as a backup and boy am I glad I did.
Throughout the life of the pump I was having to slowly adjust my gate valve little by little over the 2 years of service. I thought perhaps maybe I had not been cleaning the pump well enough or perhaps things were slowing down the flow in the plumbing. Well the week before last after shutting the pump off to feed my fish it no longer turned on. It tried to start 3x then the controller would blink the service light. Took the pump out, cleaned it as best as I could, same result. Installed the new pump ( same controller ). Same thing, tries to start x3 then service lights turns on. Swap out the controller and boom, works like a charm and so much flow that I had to open my gate valve all the back open and actually lower the setting on the pump.
I think the pumps are of solid quality. They push a lot of water and they are quiet. The controllers are cheap and go figure, Hydro was bought out and is no longer answering service request. I really would hate to throw away the pumps since they seem to work like a charm.
This seems to be a common problem on DC equipment. I had a Skimz DC controllable skimmer that failed in the exact same way previously. However, I ended up throwing that away and did not even consider that the controller had gone bad. Again, company went under before the warranty was out. Seems to be a pretty common business practice in the aquarium industry. It really is pretty frustrating, neither of these were bottom of the barrel in terms of price and quality. Both were middle of the road, had good reviews, and worked well.
It could also possibly be that shutting off the power to both of these through my apex (for feeding once a day) eventually killed these controllers.
I'm just really hoping someone on here has some experience repairing electronics and could point me in the right direction. I've soldered things here and there, but nothing like this before. The pumps themselves do not have a power brick. The power comes from the wall into the controller and out to the pump. I have yet to open up the controller and even if I did I really wouldn't know where to start. The controller turns on, lights up, tries to power up the pump, then shuts itself down. It must not be outputting correctly because the pump does not sound normal as it starts to rev up before shutting off. Again with the new controller the same pump works fine so it is 100% the controller that is the issue.
Hydor Seltz D 3200
Fairly priced, had the water flow I was looking for, was controllable, oh and a 2 year warranty. It worked so well that I bought a second as a backup and boy am I glad I did.
Throughout the life of the pump I was having to slowly adjust my gate valve little by little over the 2 years of service. I thought perhaps maybe I had not been cleaning the pump well enough or perhaps things were slowing down the flow in the plumbing. Well the week before last after shutting the pump off to feed my fish it no longer turned on. It tried to start 3x then the controller would blink the service light. Took the pump out, cleaned it as best as I could, same result. Installed the new pump ( same controller ). Same thing, tries to start x3 then service lights turns on. Swap out the controller and boom, works like a charm and so much flow that I had to open my gate valve all the back open and actually lower the setting on the pump.
I think the pumps are of solid quality. They push a lot of water and they are quiet. The controllers are cheap and go figure, Hydro was bought out and is no longer answering service request. I really would hate to throw away the pumps since they seem to work like a charm.
This seems to be a common problem on DC equipment. I had a Skimz DC controllable skimmer that failed in the exact same way previously. However, I ended up throwing that away and did not even consider that the controller had gone bad. Again, company went under before the warranty was out. Seems to be a pretty common business practice in the aquarium industry. It really is pretty frustrating, neither of these were bottom of the barrel in terms of price and quality. Both were middle of the road, had good reviews, and worked well.
It could also possibly be that shutting off the power to both of these through my apex (for feeding once a day) eventually killed these controllers.
I'm just really hoping someone on here has some experience repairing electronics and could point me in the right direction. I've soldered things here and there, but nothing like this before. The pumps themselves do not have a power brick. The power comes from the wall into the controller and out to the pump. I have yet to open up the controller and even if I did I really wouldn't know where to start. The controller turns on, lights up, tries to power up the pump, then shuts itself down. It must not be outputting correctly because the pump does not sound normal as it starts to rev up before shutting off. Again with the new controller the same pump works fine so it is 100% the controller that is the issue.
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