Ecotech MP40 or Gyre FX250 or other

Freddy0144 · Jan 25, 2018

So I have decided that it is going to be a combination of the two. I have purchased 2 MP40's and I am very happy with the movement that I am getting in the tank. Because I have an old school acrylic tank with the over flow towers built into the back corners of the tank I am going to later install a Gyre250 in the center of the back of the tank. I have to say I am impressed with the build quality of the MD40's so far. They are super quiet and lots of flow.

Thanks all for the comments and replies they are greatly appreciated.

reefndude · Jan 25, 2018

That's how my set up is

Freddy0144 · Jan 25, 2018

reefndude said:
That's how my set up is

very nice!!

Tallison · Jan 25, 2018

+1 on the Gyres. I had Mp10s and it wasn't enough flow so I got the Gyre. 1 gyre is $50 cheaper than an mp40 and more flow. Plus another gyre is half the price without the controller

Forsaken77 · Jan 26, 2018

Forsaken77 · Jan 27, 2018

Freddy0144 said:
So I have decided that it is going to be a combination of the two. I have purchased 2 MP40's and I am very happy with the movement that I am getting in the tank. Because I have an old school acrylic tank with the over flow towers built into the back corners of the tank I am going to later install a Gyre250 in the center of the back of the tank. I have to say I am impressed with the build quality of the MD40's so far. They are super quiet and lots of flow.

Thanks all for the comments and replies they are greatly appreciated.

It's obviously your choice, but the MP40's may be better on the back with the Gyres on the sides. Or not a 250 gyre anyway. Thats overkill for a back to front. If you're going with just 1 gyre then I would personally suggest either the Icecap or the 150. And your sand will still fly all over, lol. I would only get a Maxspect if you're hooking up 2 to the 1 controller, or you need super flow. For 1 gyre that's back to front, the Icecap is more than enough, ime.

I own 2 MP40's, 2 XF250's and an Icecap 3K gyre.

vetteguy53081 · Feb 11, 2018

Gyre has great movement and can be placed in various positions within tank. I have both and movement is fantastic

User1 · Feb 11, 2018

I ended up going a bit different with my Gyre. I have the XF250 that I bought a year ago during one of the holiday sales. Anyway the plan was to buy a second one but I never really did. So recently over this past week I finally got my tank set up and started the cycle. Instead of going with another Gyre I purchased two 1" Sea Swirls. Between the two I pretty much have zero dead spots which is what I was after.

Interesting enough I ended up adding the Gyre anyway earlier today on the right side of my tank (penesula style) which is my overflow. I may end up putting it on the pack wall in the middle but has of now that is where it is. I am using one of the standard pre-programmed patterns and pretty happy with it. Earlier in the day I was feeling like I was in a dentist office because whatever I had it set to was creating a very high pitch whine. Setting it to about 70% seems to have calmed it down which is nice. I can see a slight, very slight, pattern even on the sand over 24 hours which is what I wanted.

Should be interesting to see how they fair over the coming months. The one reason for going with Sea Swirls is that I didn't want wires in the tank and less maintenance. If the Gyre manages to keep a constant flow with minimal maintenance I'll be even more jazzed. I'm lazy and tank maintenance is always a chore to me

Kmsutows · Feb 11, 2018

saf1 said:
I ended up going a bit different with my Gyre. I have the XF250 that I bought a year ago during one of the holiday sales. Anyway the plan was to buy a second one but I never really did. So recently over this past week I finally got my tank set up and started the cycle. Instead of going with another Gyre I purchased two 1" Sea Swirls. Between the two I pretty much have zero dead spots which is what I was after.

Interesting enough I ended up adding the Gyre anyway earlier today on the right side of my tank (penesula style) which is my overflow. I may end up putting it on the pack wall in the middle but has of now that is where it is. I am using one of the standard pre-programmed patterns and pretty happy with it. Earlier in the day I was feeling like I was in a dentist office because whatever I had it set to was creating a very high pitch whine. Setting it to about 70% seems to have calmed it down which is nice. I can see a slight, very slight, pattern even on the sand over 24 hours which is what I wanted.

Should be interesting to see how they fair over the coming months. The one reason for going with Sea Swirls is that I didn't want wires in the tank and less maintenance. If the Gyre manages to keep a constant flow with minimal maintenance I'll be even more jazzed. I'm lazy and tank maintenance is always a chore to me

Are the sea swirls for the returns or the sweeps by any chance? How do you like them? I've been wanting the sea sweeps

User1 · Feb 11, 2018

Kmsutows said:
Are the sea swirls for the returns or the sweeps by any chance? How do you like them? I've been wanting the sea sweeps

If I understand the question correctly they are on my return lines. They can also be used in a closed loop. I have two 1" return lines. Down the road I'll go with 4, 1 for each corner. In the mean time what I've done is place both on the back of the tank, 1 on each corner, with it set to 90 degrees. I am getting pretty good coverage but it is a bit hard to tell with only rocks, sand, water, during the cycle. But it seems good. Good surface agitation, some patterns on the bottom, no sand blowing around. So far they seem ok.

Like I mentioned above I do have the Gyre also installed on the side return glass pane. It is running the default oceanic gyre cycle at 70%. It has cut down that whine a lot so I really don't hear it now. I like the idea, concept, just not sure how they do in the long run. I'm guessing with normal maintenance, which is normal I'd wager, they will be fine.

Rick Miranda · May 18, 2018

amnesiac said:
I actually have had both on seperate tanks. I added 2 150's when they first came out on a 6 foot tank and got great coverage. The tank has 2 overflow boxes so there were some dead spots that I had to add a couple of Tunzes to alleviate, but still even without the Tunzes it was a mountain of water movement. I set up my office tank using 2 MP40s and almost instantly the difference became very apparent. While the 150's moved water in a "sheet" across the top of the water surface the MP40s spread was way more narrow allowing for more dead spots. Here's a drawing. You'll have to excuse the crudity of this drawing. I didn't have time to draw it to scale

I thought that with the office tank only having a center overflow this wouldn't be a big deal but it was and sure enough in time I started getting cyano in those dead spots. I tried shifting the MP40s around to find a sweet spot that would give me the most spread, but in the end I had to supplement them with more pumps. Luckily enough for me I had 2 spare MP10s and mounted them at the back. This was going just fine for months, but I decided on replacing all 4 pumps with a couple of the new Gyres. So last week I took all 4 Vortechs down and replaced them with the Gyre 250s. Couldn't be happier. No dead spots, great spread and I only have them running at 50%. I also only have 1 power supply running both instead of 4 Vortech bricks. Hope this helps. -A

Well said and explained! Currently I have 2 mp40 and just bought 2 Gyre pump 250 model. Looking at the drawing, looks like its still a good idea to put my old mp40 on the backwall to cover the deadspot? I have 1 overflow in the middle.