Hot JBJ

[HawaiianReef]

I just picked up a used JBJ 28 yeasterday. My temp is running at 80*. I unplugged the heater, same thing. Turned off the lights, same. Removed the lid, still, 80*. At this point the only equipment that can generate heat is the return pumps.
Has anyone else encountered this?

David

 

[NY_Caveman]

What is the ambient temperature of the room? You could put the pump in a bucket of water of a known temperature and see if it raises the temperature of the water.

 

[S&SReef]

Is it the LED or the compact light hood? They do tend to get hot at times. I ended up ditching the hood abd puttong a kessil over mine the open top made temp regulation easier

 

[HawaiianReef]

The room is at 73. I have a 55g and a 10g next to it and those stay at 78.
I unplugged one pump and I'm waiting to see if that changes things. If not I guess I'll unplug the other. Really strange though.

It's the compact florescent lid. I did as you did and ditched the whole thing, fit an egg crate cover for jumpers and put a 360 over it. But nothing changed.

 

[HawaiianReef]

First return pump, no change. 2nd, temp came down to about 78.5-79.
I'm going to put the circulation pumps back in and shut down the return. At least until I order new pumps.
I just dont understand this one...

 

[HawaiianReef]

Well I checked again before bed. Temp dropped to 77. FINALLY. I'll put a couple circulation pumps on it tomorrow and investigate those pumps. I'm thinking something is causing resistance on the impellers to heat up the motor. Thats all I can think of.
I'll update tomorrow.

 

[vegamedic]

well on the bright side if your heaters ever fail you can just switch that pump on and voila, free heater! are the pumps old? did you disassemble and vinegar soak/scrub them before setting everything back up?

 

[HawaiianReef]

well on the bright side if your heaters ever fail you can just switch that pump on and voila, free heater! are the pumps old? did you disassemble and vinegar soak/scrub them before setting everything back up?

I did no maintance setting the system back up. I didn't concern myself with the hardware. My main concern was the livestock which included the bacteria in the substrate. I left the sandbed in the tank and was able to keep it intact. In less than an hour, all corals opened up, the fish were doing fine, I did save all the water including the water that the corals traveled in, I just threw away the water the 3 fish were bagged with and ended up doing a 5g water change. Parameters were stable and the API ammonia test would barely read a hint of green (so about .10-.15) after about an hour of mixing the vial. 5 min. showed nothing. So chemically, the water was great. Just the dang temp raising. It went up to 82 before I noticed corals closing up. I figured it was ammonia. After I retested parameters, I checked the temp and instantly removed the heater and lifted the lid. Today I will pull those pumps out. I have a couple small circulation pumps that are finishing up a sterilization bath of bleach. There now in prime/water. That should get everything back in order. Well, hopefully.
Oh, I just woke up in bed. I'll go check the temp again. It should be even lower now. Probably around 72-74. The room is kept at 73.

 

[HawaiianReef]

YES!!!
72* with one return pump on and the other off!! So it must be the other pump. I want to take the pump out and inspect it So bad right now, but its like 5am and I dont want stress out the tank with early lights. I'll go do it after breakfast. I'm just hoping to see something obvious. I hate it when you narrow something down and it still looks perfectly fine. That brings in temptation to ignore all eliminating you did in the first place to reach a conclusion.
Well, I'll post a follow up. Wish me luck!

 

[alton]

I had the same issue with a 120v Jebaeo pump years ago, it raised the temp of my 40 gallon by 5 degrees

 

[HawaiianReef]

I bought 3 of the Jabao 6500 DC pumps a few months back. For 75 bucks and a silent adjustable pumps, how could you go wrong?!
Im reconsidering them on my winter build. Im thinking of an good old Iwaki 40rlxt. Something out of the water and reliable. Once I adjusted the dc pump, I never messed with it anyway...

Update:
Got the pump out... what pain that was. No sign of anything restricting the impeller. I'm going to set up a 10g and run it to monitor the temp off this pump. I'll get back with those results. But this pump is officially retired no matter what.

Pumps are no joke. I lost a couple hundred mushrooms and at least a hundred rbt with other random corals, snails and starfish. Not to mention all the equipment from a little Rio 180 that literally blew up in the tank. The 180 was used as a bubbler for that "pest" tank.

Here's some pics of the ACCELA SP 1/1000 out of the JBJ 28. And a couple pics of the remains of a RIO 180. The wire burned its way up until it was out of the water. If it hadn't, I most likely wouldn't be posting this today. I stuck my hand in immediately to grab one of the bare rocks that once had mushrooms completely covering it. The tank was a 33g long. The tank might be salvageable after all the silicone is replaced, but everything else is in a trash bin due to chemicals leaching out of the pump and contaminating all the plastic on the equipment. Bad day...

 

[HawaiianReef]

oops. Here are those pics.. sry

Heres the JBJ pump. Can't see anything wrong...

RIO 180 with back epoxy burned completely through

Heres a huge bulge in the impeller cavity. The pic doesn't really show how high it is. The impeller cant move because of the bulge.

Wire burned through

 

[Stigigemla]

I have had a shortcircuit of one turn in the winding of the motor. The pump went very hot but did function. I just took out the impeller of the pump and another pump of the same model and measured the inductance with a good multimeter. It was much lower.

 

[HawaiianReef]

That would save the hassle of running the pump in another volume of water. I do have another field (no impeller) that came with the system. I could even do a comparison of all three, if I include the one running in the cube now.

The thing that bothers me is that my RIO was plugged into a power strip with a breaker. It makes me really look into spending the money on the ecotech pumps.

 

[HawaiianReef]

So the water in the 10g with the pump I beleive to be the culprit never went over 70*.
The JBJ is running at 77-78 without a heater. I did find a new pump for the tank in a box of supplies the previous owner gave me, so thats running along with the other pump.
I've been checking it throughout the night and it swings maybe .5* with lights off. I did go back to the original lid to use the old lights. The corals didn't like the kessil after the large temp swing. So they're bouncing back now.
Eventually everything is going to be moved into another tank as originally planned. I bought the system for the corals but wanted to keep them in the same system to help them recover from the move.
So I'll just keep a watchful eye on everything and get them into their new home once they're healthy again.