Neptune Cor 20

[Salty Carlo]

I am thinking of upgrading my current return pump (Jebao DCS 4000) to the Cor-20. I was wondering what everyone thinks about them. How easy are they to set up and connect, any draw backs.

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[Reefcowboy]

Just bought a Vectra M1 yesterday after my Cor20 stopped working only after a month. Neptune has been great with support, but I will keep the Vectra in the tank now with the Cor as backup. I hope the Vectra doesnt dissapoint as well, time will tell.

So far, a few things Ive noticed: Vectra is rated for same Gph, but the Cor20 pushes more water. At 60% the Cor equals 80% of the Vectra’s power. I have a flow meter so I was able to measure both.

The Cor is fully controllable by the apex, but all the bells and whistles arent really needed. With more features, there is room for more things to go wrong, which is why Im using the Vectra for now, being its simpler. I guess it comes down to the Vectra and Cor as everything else besides Abyzz is way behind.

 

[Mark Gray]

I wish I would have gotten the Cor 20's I bought 2 Cor 15's but I love them very quiet and not sure you have an Apex but there are some very cool things you can do with these pumps

 

[User1]

@Reefcowboy I was going with the Vectra's also but then stumbled upon too many issues with their first release. I guess they made a design change to fix the issues, forget which model it was or if on both, so not heard has much. One fella on another forum who I talk to runs them and continues to have issues. Could be isolated but much like Neptune Vectra support has been good to him and replaced every one. In any case to the OP's question.

I had a DCT 15000 for a bit but swapped out to the Cor 15. It works well and built like a tank compared to the DCT. I mean it is heavy, thick, and very well built. Standard Neptune Apex integration if you have the ecosystem already I would say it is a no brainer to purchase. They are pretty good so far in the 5 or so months I've owned it. I picked up a second one to run my skimmer with the thought process being if the return does poop out I can take the skimmer offline and swap. The installation / union config makes it less than a 5 minute task.

I am running it at 100% so not using any of the controllable features but it is nice. My one concern with some of these pumps is their maintenance window of cleaning. DCT needed at least once a month. So far the Cor 15's was running fine but I cleaned them both at about 3 months. I have a Lt. Tank in my 210 gallon and it eats Nori like, well, I'm not sure how to describe it. Anyway what goes in must go out and so he is a pooping machine and I have nutrient exported things of nori floating around that I think built up a bit in the Cor. In any case 3 month cleaning wasn't bad and not heavily slimmed or blocked.

Overall I would say they are great pumps. Again - 15's here. Maybe going with a 20 would have made more sense but mixed reef, 210 gallons, 150 lbs of rock, not a lot of coral moved into it from my 40 breeder made me think it was ok for now. Good luck.

Edit: There is one minor complaint from me, and it is consistent with other owners, is what is the deal with no intake cover! On one hand they give a lot of stuff in the package with unions, etc. On the other would a intake cover add that much cost? I have strombus (sp) snails and they are pretty small. I've had one get caught in there but it was small enough to be in, and out, in no time. Larger one may be a issue but hey - that is what the smart pump is supposed to check and adjust....

Anyway - just wanted to mention that while it is mostly golden bombs of light and love there was that. Some also argue about noise but that seems to be related to plumbing. I'm plumbed per their instructions at 1" with zero noise.

 

[Reefcowboy]

@saf1 thanks for the info. Yes the Cor is well built and I liked it. To talk a bit more about the issue I had, two days ago at 4am I got a txt that my pump was faulty. It indicated “overcurrent” , then “dry” and “volt” messages.

I couldnt figure what was going on. I didnt have a backup pump either so I was concerned about leaving the tank without return, being my Alk/Ca dosing, cooling of the water is done in the sump, and I have lots of SPS in my display.

I had to leave to go to work and was very upset this pump had failed in less than a month. I Emailed Neptune and they got back to me the saying it was a defective driver or/and pump. They would send me a new unit.

I couldnt wait another day without return so went to a LFS and had the option of getting another Cor20 or the Vectra M1. I chose the second as I was pretty angry that a smart pump could give me so much info, but failed so soon to do the main thing needed to run my tank. Even worse, it failed sooner than a $120 crappy Jebao I had(failed in 9 months).

The Vectra L1 is the model with the issues reported, as far as I know the M1’s havent had those issues. I also checked the manufacturing date before I purchased to make sure it was recent as newer pumps have the upgraded impeller housing. So far the pump has been doing its job. It is quiet and compact. When I receive the replacement Cor20, will put it in storage so I can use it when my Vectra needs maintenance or anything else.

 

[Fritzhamer]

I just went back to my Jebao DCP 8000 from my Cor-15. In my case the Jebao pushes 50% more water at the same electrical draw as the Cor. I have a bunch of 90s but my Apex flow meter has the Cor-15 at about 300 GPH at 100% on my setup. The Jebao is doing 450 GPH at 65% of max (50 Watts).

The main deciding factor for me was noise though. The Cor is pretty quiet but not silent. A Varios or Jebao are pretty close to silent, I can’t speak for the Vectra.

 

[roberthu526]

I run a COR15 simply because no additional power brick needed. And it is plenty for my 150G. I run it at 70%

 

[ca1ore]

I've been running the Vectra M1 on my closed loop problem-free for almost 3 years. I probably would have bought the COR at the time had it been available, but it was not. I think most of the vectra problems have been with the L1, thus the running modification. I do not believe the M or S1 have been modified. The ability to monitor the COR through apex is appealing for a closed loop. For a main pump, I'm looking for a decade or more of set it and forget it at a 'sensible' price. None of the DC pumps need apply.

 

[SaltwaterAq Verified Sponsor]

Both pumps are good pumps. Neptune & Ecotech are 2 of the best companies in this industry. If you have ecotech gear go vectra, if you have neptune gear go COR.

 

[T_Dawg]

I was part of the Cor-20 test program so I have had one on my tank as my main return since first introduced to the public. No problems, great customer support when you need help with something program wise and it works fantastic with my Neptune Apex.

 

[Cesar Romero]

If it helps, here is my setup to compare to see if this pump would be powerful enough for you.

80 lbs of Fiji pink sand
90 lbs of pukano rock
Plumbing of 1.25
Tank size 150 60x24x24
Measurement from top of sand to water line is 59x22.5x22
Display is around 117 gallon after water displacement.

Here is an idea of my current plumbing:

I ran a series of 3 test for each of the speeds. I connected the returns to feed a one gallon bucket to determine GPH. Neptune cor has 8 dots that individually get brighter until it’s max brightness and then moves on to the next dot, etc till it reaches max at the 8 dot. Note the UV ball valve was close.

This were ran at the max speed (brightness) of the following:

At max brightness 5: 685 gallon per hour
At max brightness 6: 800 gallon per hour
At max brightness 7: 913 gallon per hour
At max brightness 8: 950 gallon per hour

Hopes this helps give you an idea of what to expect if your looking a pump as such for your setup.

From my experience so, take with a grain of salt since my tank is still cycling, it is super quite, I enjoy the idea of having Neptune control, and I would buy it again. Although doing it over, I would redo my plumbing and I would buy two pumps, one dedicated for the manifold and the second just for the return to aim for a 10x turnover.