Mindi
Active Member
Hope this is helpful to some new reefers. One pain in the neck problem is cleaning your sump which being at floor level, in most cases wont allow you to siphon vacuum it to get out the crud. I have always used the white cylindrical 12V submersible inline pumps pictured below but while they are fine for water transfers as they fit into the neck of a container, they are useless as a vacuum because they quite quickly seize up. The $100 models seize up just as quickly as the $15 models. They are just the wrong tool for the job.
Finally found a self priming, non submersible 12V pump which I have put 3M of 1/2" tube on both the suction side and the pressure side....and because it has a big rubber impeller (which can be taken out and cleaned) it pumps crud straight out like a winner. The pump came from China via eBay, but I did have to buy a decent 12V DC 12 amp power supply. The pump does not come with a power supply at all and when I ordered one through eBay which said 10 amps...it was useless and I had to go and buy a decent one locally. The eBay one had fine specs but would not deliver the nominal starting load of the pump of 10A.
So the whole project did end up costing nearly $200 aud but I can now vacuum my sump and move water in any direction very fast and easily. Avoid the white inline 12V jobs..they can pump water but they cant take crud.
These are fine for clean water movement
Finally found a self priming, non submersible 12V pump which I have put 3M of 1/2" tube on both the suction side and the pressure side....and because it has a big rubber impeller (which can be taken out and cleaned) it pumps crud straight out like a winner. The pump came from China via eBay, but I did have to buy a decent 12V DC 12 amp power supply. The pump does not come with a power supply at all and when I ordered one through eBay which said 10 amps...it was useless and I had to go and buy a decent one locally. The eBay one had fine specs but would not deliver the nominal starting load of the pump of 10A.
So the whole project did end up costing nearly $200 aud but I can now vacuum my sump and move water in any direction very fast and easily. Avoid the white inline 12V jobs..they can pump water but they cant take crud.
These are fine for clean water movement
