Reef Octopus RODC 3500s Skimmer Pump problem

[Jadran]

Good day all,


I have internal Reef Octopus skimmer powered by RODC 3500s Skimmer Pump thats been driving me crazy for a week now and hope some of you might have had such scenario and could possibly guide in direction how to put an end to that drama.

I bought this skimmer few years back but didnt put it in use till last december. Soalthough over 5 years old this is practically new device. Its been running for like 3 months and than one day out of the blue its pump simply stopped. When you swithch it on, controller lights up and after few seconds disconnects the pump. So its not electrical problem.

This is new tank, still cycling without much of live stock or any litttle invertabrates that could in theory crawl in / get sucked in or build up inside the pump. Not dosing (kalkwasser, balling, calc reactor ) but I disassembled it, cleaned it ( not much of dirt in anyhow) assembled it again and… nothing. Controller lights up, impeller not spinning, controller shuts it down again.

So I disassemble it again, put it back together again, trurned it on without voulte cover and
pinwheel spins, danged thing is working. Put a lid back on and its stucked again. So it is clearly
an mechanical issue: voute cover is jamming the impeller and thats why controller shuts it down after several seconds.


I've been putting the cover on and off every since, but still have not found what would jam the dang thing. There's nothing there. As I said its been driving me crazy for days now and been entertaining the idea to smash it against the wall. Tried to push back impeller as much as I could and thats where it all ends..

Any ideas?


Thx.

 

[sbash]

Is the impeller swollen at all?

What about the rubber nubs on each end of the impeller shaft, they could be worn down a bit?

 

[Jadran]

It all looks ok to me, practically new device it is. I wrote to RO to see with them about it. I guess sollution would be to get a new pump and probably I'll have to do that. But it all looks like easyfix.. It worked, it stopped because some overlooked small thing is still jamming it.. In the meanwhile I'll be running my good old ATI bubblemaster

 

[Blackened]

Had this exact problem.

It was the impeller. Replaced it and solved the problem....Just in case someone reads this post in the future.