Aquarium equipment noise level

[Matthew Frost]

Hi everyone
Been wondering if any of you ever had second thoughts about the trade off of having a beautiful piece of the ocean in your house versus the operational noise from the life supporting equipment.

I did my research for several months, upgraded equipment, took every step of containing and isolating the noise including using some Auralex foam on the wall, adding silicone tubbing and padding, but I'm still haunted by the low whirring of my Vários 4 pump at night and the Tunze Nanostream + Nyos Skimmer during the day. Don't get me wrong, these products are the quietest ones I have ever dealt with, it's just that every moving or fast spinning part has to cause some sort of noise and I get that. I'm too part of the problem as I am very sensitive to noises, and any won't let me sleep.

Curisouly my first tank I ever had had a Fluval cannister filter which produced absolutely no noise. You could not hear anything even standing right in front of the tank. I guess that would be impossible with a pump that is at least 4 times more powerful sitting on an open sump. So it leaves me wondering if upgrading to a bigger tank with sump was the right choice.

I wonder too if anybody had any non-conventional solutions to encapsule the noise in the stand without creating a mini sauna... other than moving the tank to the basement!
It also occurred to me to undersize the return pump to the very minimum as I run my Vários on the lowest power level. Smaller pump = quieter maybe?

Are there people out there that share the same experience and would like to pitch in? Or am I alone on this?

A couple of thoughts/ideas you might pursue. I was told by my wife that in order for my "piece of the ocean" to be in a public place in our home it had to be SILENT. I had to set the whole thing up in the garage and test it and get sign off on it. I do not have the most expensive or the most silent equipment in the world and I was able to take virtually all of the noise out of mine.
1. Return pump: I have a Jebao DCT6000 and there is nothing silent about that thing. I found that if it doesn't rest on the sump floor it is a fraction as loud. I noticed if the return piping "pushed" on the pump at all it got incredibly noisy. Mine is actually suspended slightly by the return line so it doesn't touch the sump at all. It made a huge difference.
2. Skimmer: I have a bubble magus curve 5 and the feet on it are hard and impossible to keep even so it rocks and I got a constant rhythmic hum vibration out of it. I got some 3/8" surgical tubing and laid it under thw skimmer like sitting it on "logs" and it keeps the skimmer feet off the sump floor and it is near silent now.
3. Wavemakers: I also run Jebao wave makers and they canbe noisy too. I found a thin piece of filter floss like material/really thin felt, something that keeps the magnets from being in direct contact with the tank dramatically decreases vibration noise.

 

[m3rcfh]

Again, my Varios 6 is silent with no hissing. But the exit is under water, so there wouldn't be. I've also got a backup Varios 6 and I just trade them out and clean the one that was in use every few months which works pretty well.......

I liked how you hard plumbed everything straight out of the pump, with no flex tubing.
Is the pump touching the sump bottom or suspended? Also, if you don't mind me asking, is your return 3/4 or 1" diameter?

I will try hard plumbing my pump this weekend and seeing if that helps. I'm wondering if the barb fitting for the silicone hose in the pump's output is restricting the flow and that creates the hissing. I got a few options in mind: hard plumbing only with 3/4", hard plumbing with 1" from the pump and reducing to 3/4" and an hybrid of hard and only a 5" piece of flex tubing.
If none works, warranty it is.

No hopes for the Skimmer, I'm thinking that it is as silent as it can be... It just sucks that such an expensive equipment won't meet your noise requirements.

 

[mucky1957]

I like a lot members am OCD about noise. The tank is in the main living room where I refuse to even have a ticking clock. I dont have a sump so there is no noise coming from canisters etc but I am running an internal filter, external filter and 2 x Jebao RW8's as powerheads. The skimmer runs on a time switch from 10.30pm to 12.30pm daily ( the tv drowns any noise from the skimmer at night and no one is home till early afternoon ) and I can honestly say the tank is deathly silent. No noise from any of the machinery and the wave makers are at a depth/angle so that whilst there is strong water flow there isn't even the odd trickle noise from the water.

 

[m3rcfh]

3. Wavemakers: I also run Jebao wave makers and they canbe noisy too. I found a thin piece of filter floss like material/really thin felt, something that keeps the magnets from being in direct contact with the tank dramatically decreases vibration noise.

That is actually a very good idea. I noticed the Tunze magnets being way stronger than the competitors (not convinced we need all that magnetic strength), and it maybe transfers the vibration to the glass. I will try to find a piece of silicone or rubber and stick it in between the powerhead and the glass

 

[gcrawford]

I liked how you hard plumbed everything straight out of the pump, with no flex tubing.
Is the pump touching the sump bottom or suspended? Also, if you don't mind me asking, is your return 3/4 or 1" diameter?

I will try hard plumbing my pump this weekend and seeing if that helps. I'm wondering if the barb fitting for the silicone hose in the pump's output is restricting the flow and that creates the hissing. I got a few options in mind: hard plumbing only with 3/4", hard plumbing with 1" from the pump and reducing to 3/4" and an hybrid of hard and only a 5" piece of flex tubing.
If none works, warranty it is.

No hopes for the Skimmer, I'm thinking that it is as silent as it can be... It just sucks that such an expensive equipment won't meet your noise requirements.

1 1/4 out of the pump, reduced along the way to dual 3/4 returns. My pump sits directly on the bottom of the sump and in fact helps support the return plumbing. I believe the rubber feet help keep it quiet.

 

[ReeferBean]

I have a RD 230... its really hard to tell that its on. Little to no noise.

 

[SFKINNC]

1) I have similarly used synthetic sponges (the inexpensive ones that stay soft when dry) and even remnants of old towels folded underneath noisy equipment (such as air pumps — I HATE buzzing air pumps) to help reduce the sound. It does help. 2) I have always found submersible pumps to be much quieter than external pumps.

My current reef-in-progress is housed in a BioCube 32 and I only have two complaints about it: 1) There is no room for a skimmer. 2) It is very noisy. The cooling fans make a noticeable racket. I am told that some people have replaced the fans with fans that are designed for computer chassis and that those are much quieter, but I have no idea how to do that or what I’d need to purchase. So I’m stuck with the noise.

I have to comment on my last post here. The menu screen on my BioCube broke, so Coralife sent me a brand new hood for my tank. The cooling fan on the new hood is inaudible unless you put your ear to it!