Whats the best gyre wave pump?

[vcnt]

I've noticed there are a few different brands of gyre pumps, the saltwater guy at LFS said he prefers red sea over Maxspect. I'm just looking for others' opinions, thanks!

 

[14 foot reef]

I've noticed there are a few different brands of gyre pumps, the saltwater guy at LFS said he prefers red sea over Maxspect. I'm just looking for others' opinions, thanks!

I Have the maxspect 350's .. the longer this post is up the longer you'll see there is a love hate relationship. One of the best water patterns ever. One of the biggest pains in the back side to keep clean and keep running optimal.

 

[Ron Reefman]

IMHO, they are all too fussy about being cleaned and their motors don't have enough torque. Stick to wavemakers unless you have a huge tank.

 

[vcnt]

IMHO, they are all too fussy about being cleaned and their motors don't have enough torque. Stick to wavemakers unless you have a huge tank.

my tank is 110 gallons.

 

[JoJosReef]

There seems to be 3 choices: Jebao, Red Sea and the Maxspect/IceCap/AI (they seem to be identical).

I've had the Maxspect Jump 2K and the xf330. I like that they give water movement throughout the tank, bit they do seem to lower performance over time untill you clean them again.

If doing it all over I'd probably go with a pair of Jebaos. I'm not sure the premium comes with much extra.

 

[mdrReefer]

I have the xf350 cloud dual version on a 180 gal 6’ long take. One on each end and a set of Tunze 6095 wide flows next to them. SPS on top, softies on bottom. Had them for 1.5 years i think now. They had to send me a new control unit at 1 year which they did without fuss. Cleaning is easy, i just pull the blades and cages off, soak them in citric acid, scrub, replace. The ability control the flow is amazing and critical in my opinion to cause some random flow and break up the bottom dragging gyre loop. The ability to customize the flow rates and pulses is awesome and what really sets them apart from the Jabeo (i have one of those but not in use right now). The downside: I have found they must be cleaned every 1-2 months as they loose significant flow. I lost some corals when i let them go 4 months one time. Also, i run them at 90-100% and the noise is quite annoying. I am setting here wondering if two MP40s would be better than what I have if they are quiet now. But I’ve had them in the past and they just didn't last and became wobbly and loud also (that was 2014 or so). I tried the neros, nice pumps but i was trying to use them for spot SPS service and the flow and rotation angle was way too narrow. I expect they would be a good alternative to the mp40 though for the cross tank pattern, that said their have been a lot of complaints of them quiting on people in the first year. The jabeo alternatives to those again i found the lack of pattern customization too limiting. I wanted to set up a wave and that seemed difficult with them. I can also add that i started this tank with Current USA pumps. I really liked controlling all the angles and they were quiet…but they failed constantly in the 6mo - 1y time frame. They must have sent me around 6 replacements all to do the same thing. I just had to ditch them.

 

[mdrReefer]

I have the xf350 cloud dual version on a 180 gal 6’ long take. One on each end and a set of Tunze 6095 wide flows next to them. SPS on top, softies on bottom. Had them for 1.5 years i think now. They had to send me a new control unit at 1 year which they did without fuss. Cleaning is easy, i just pull the blades and cages off, soak them in citric acid, scrub, replace. The ability control the flow is amazing and critical in my opinion to cause some random flow and break up the bottom dragging gyre loop. The ability to customize the flow rates and pulses is awesome and what really sets them apart from the Jabeo (i have one of those but not in use right now). The downside: I have found they must be cleaned every 1-2 months as they loose significant flow. I lost some corals when i let them go 4 months one time. Also, i run them at 90-100% and the noise is quite annoying. I am setting here wondering if two MP40s would be better than what I have if they are quiet now. But I’ve had them in the past and they just didn't last and became wobbly and loud also (that was 2014 or so). I tried the neros, nice pumps but i was trying to use them for spot SPS service and the flow and rotation angle was way too narrow. I expect they would be a good alternative to the mp40 though for the cross tank pattern, that said their have been a lot of complaints of them quiting on people in the first year. The jabeo alternatives to those again i found the lack of pattern customization too limiting. I wanted to set up a wave and that seemed difficult with them.

There seems to be 3 choices: Jebao, Red Sea and the Maxspect/IceCap/AI (they seem to be identical).

I've had the Maxspect Jump 2K and the xf330. I like that they give water movement throughout the tank, bit they do seem to lower performance over time untill you clean them again.

If doing it all over I'd probably go with a pair of Jebaos. I'm not sure the premium comes with much extra.

I recall they have an issue with how the second or slave pump behaves. Made it really not usuable. It was something like the second pump was full blast, no way to edit how it behaved.