Has anyone ever had a vortech Dry side go bad?

[mattnano]

Hey all, I am wondering if anyone has every had the dry side of a vortech go bad on them? I ask because I recently bought a tank with an internal overflow that I plan to place very close to my wall. I really don’t want the power head on the side of my tank so I’m planning on putting it on the back wall. The only way to have it fit would be to cut a small hole in my drywall for the dry side to fit behind the tank. I consider this a semi permanent installation as moving it would require draining a lot of the tank and moving the whole tank. I know vortechs are great pumps I’m just wondering how long I can reasonably expect the dry side to last?
thanks!

 

[blaxsun]

Generally it's the wet sides that go. I don't know how much air circulation these need, but I'd be inclined to run them on the sides vs. cutting holes in your drywall. Just my $0.02.

 

[outhouse]

Had 2 or 3 dry sides go bad. The cause was the first gen wet sides would get stuck and then cause the dry side bearings to fail. The wet sides lasted about 4 months before they needed to be cleaned to keep them from locking up. The gen2 have had the ceramic shafts break, but super glue and they are spinning about 2years no problems dry or wet. Plenty of bearing failure video how to's out there from similar failures. Never had luck replacing those bearings.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

The only common issue that vortech had was mentioned above. The armatures in the old dry sides (aluminum housing) weren't balanced properly to the neodymium magnet which caused mass bearing failures on so many pumps. It got so bad that there was a very popular diy thread on reef central that detailed bearing replacement.

These days that issue is not a concern.

If you want my opinion, I wouldn't cut a hole in the drywall to accommodate the space. Heat will be your chief concern and can cause premature failure to the windings.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

It will go bad! Because Murphy's Law says so! You will get the one that will develop a noisy bearing and that hole you drilled into your drywall just became a speaker to resonate the noise 10 fold.
I might look into a Nero or keep your tank farther away from the wall. There are other benefits to doing that.