Some equipment recommendations please

[gar732]

I thought about the quiet one pumps but they seem to be hit or miss for some people, either they are work great or don't from the reviews that I've read. With my luck I'll get one that stops working the day after the warranty is up, lol. I'm debating between the eheim 1262 and a flow star 1500.

I agree with the SWC skimmers, they seem to be the best bang for the buck, I'm thinking of going with a 160. I've failed horribly at my first attempt at cutting the transition for the neck. I'll give it one more go then I'm buying one which sucks because I've already bought all the materials.

As for the ro/di unit I'm looking into a spectrapure unit, anyone else have anything to say about them?

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm looking to rebuild my reef and want to do it as best I can, I appreciate your help!

 

[AZDesertRat]

I have had two Quiet Ones literally catch fire. one would be a coincidence, two is a big red flag to me. They also have terrible restart problems and run hotter than blazes. My display dropped 3 degrees just by changing out a Quiet One 4000 for a OR3500 and no other changes. When run externally on a closed loop the 4000 was so hot I could not comfortably lay my hand on it while the OR3500 never even felt warm to the touch in the same application. The Mag 7 and 9.5 I tried were almost as hot too.

 

[Reefwizard]

The older models before the redesign were bad pumps, the new ones with lower wattage have a been a very nice pump. runs very cool and when stopped restart is right on, I sold them before and stopped when they were bad, now I would recomend them to anyone.

Azdesertrat why dont you tell him about your RODI, He is asking for input outside of mine.

 

[Oiseau Reefer]

I would say find a way to plumb an external I run a reeflo dart on my 125 also plumbed into a 40b frag tank it runs my calcium reactor and carbon reactor all ball valves are full blast my 125 has 4- 3/4" returns and my 40b has one and I'd say it will be getting upgraded to a larger pump as my corals grow because I don't feel it's enough as my corals grow out I also have 2- mj sureflow 2100gph mods in my 125 as well it all runs great for me and reeflo has a great warrantee my pump started making just a little noise and I called them up told them about it they shipped me a new pump no cost and I had to just slap the new one on and pay to ship mine back

 

[condor]

a mag 18 is def not too much for a 125!!!

 

[AZDesertRat]

The two Quiet Ones I had burn up were both the new style, you won't catch me with another one, after Pentair bought them the quality went in the crapper. I don't understand it because Pentair is about the largest pump manufacturer in the world for larger pumps, they bought up everybody.
I did recommend the Spectrapure CSP-DI in post #15 in this thread, its easily the best deal on a RO/DI today at only $145 complete.
SpectraPure Customer Appreciation SALE! 20% - 50% off

 

[luke33]

You could just buy the laguna max flo 1500 pump and save a few bucks. The laguna max flo 1500 is an askoll/red dragon/airstar, but its just the stock water pump version. Best price i could find is 136. Its inside the box : )

The WaterGardener — Laguna Max-Flo 1500 Solids handling Pump PT344

 

[iani]

a mag 18 is def not too much for a 125!!!

Yes it is too much. Lower sump turnover is recommended for better skimming. There is no reason why you would need that much turnover of your sump. Plus as it was mentioned earlier (by myself and others), mag pumps put out a lot of heat. A chiller is probably a must he were to use that pump.

 

[gar732]

I would say find a way to plumb an external I run a reeflo dart on my 125 also plumbed into a 40b frag tank it runs my calcium reactor and carbon reactor all ball valves are full blast my 125 has 4- 3/4" returns and my 40b has one and I'd say it will be getting upgraded to a larger pump as my corals grow because I don't feel it's enough as my corals grow out I also have 2- mj sureflow 2100gph mods in my 125 as well it all runs great for me and reeflo has a great warrantee my pump started making just a little noise and I called them up told them about it they shipped me a new pump no cost and I had to just slap the new one on and pay to ship mine back

It would be nice to have one pump for everything, it would help to keep things neat too. Are there any down sides to doing this? The snapper hybrid looks nice and has a kit to kit to convert it into a dart to get more flow if the need ever arises. It seem like a lot of flow but it says it can be dialed back and if its feeding a couple reactors, the display, and the frag tank it should be Ok, right?

Azdesertrat why dont you tell him about your RODI, He is asking for input outside of mine.

He's the one that put me on to them, I was just wondering what others experiences were with them. If you've had experience with them your opinion is more than welcome.

You could just buy the laguna max flo 1500 pump and save a few bucks. The laguna max flo 1500 is an askoll/red dragon/airstar, but its just the stock water pump version. Best price i could find is 136. Its inside the box : )

The WaterGardener — Laguna Max-Flo 1500 Solids handling Pump PT344

I'll have to look into these as well, thanks.

Thanks again for everyone's replies.

 

[condor]

Yes it is too much. Lower sump turnover is recommended for better skimming. There is no reason why you would need that much turnover of your sump. Plus as it was mentioned earlier (by myself and others), mag pumps put out a lot of heat. A chiller is probably a must he were to use that pump.

i run a mag 18 on my 105g full bore through a chiller with a 5 feet of head. my skimmer pulls out the darkest skimmate its almost black, and almost a 1\4" inch a day
also a 125g should have a chiller regardless
and you could tee off the 18 to a small ball valve to run a media reactor

anyway to each is own, but a mag 18 is not too much for a 125