PSA!! Always keep a backup return pump

[Cjud7982]

So after a number of years of reefing, the inevitable finally happened to me tonight. Came home from work late tonight and noticed the water level and flow wasn't right in my tank. Played with my ato and shut my pump off to confirm everything was working right. The pump is a varios 8 that I got from brs about a year ago. The pump controller started Blinking red lights and no pump activity at all. Nothing appears to be wrong with the pump. So I took it out of the sump and submitted a ticket with coral Vue. Luckily, I am an equipment hoarder and had an old reliable eheim 1262 from older tanks that I have had. IT has been rock solid since day one, many many years ago. Thankfully my tank is back up and running, I couldn't imagine what would have happened if I didn't have a backup, it would've taken me about a week to get a replacement pump.

So just a simple reminder, no matter what brand, how new or old, DC or ac, or whatever kind of pump you have, set the plumbing up in a way that it is easy to swap out pumps. And for your tanks sake and your hard work sake, have a backup pump on hand. It saved my night and my tank.

 

[Big G]

Sound advice ^^^ My backup pump is on my mixing station. I use it at least once a week. Nice to know it works and is available if needed.

 

[Tastee]

My backup is an Eheim CompactON 3000 in my RODI reservoir, normally used to pump bulk supplies into the house for water changes, and to fill barrels for my son to take home for his tank (-:

 

[Hemmdog]

Does anyone recommend any less expensive backups for a RO Varios 4 ? Thanks. Sorry to hear this happened to you OP. My float switch on my Varios went out after 3 months. It works now with it disabled.

 

[Thingsibuild]

Better yet if you can, run to two return pumps that way when one dies the other one still going.

 

[Medic58]

Yep I got two Vortech m1 I bought one and the other came from a guy who was selling it because the power box went out he sold it to me for 100 bucks and the power box cost 75. I couldn’t pass it up. So I’m happy with two m1 pumps.

 

[rc1626]

This lesson was learned for me a few years back. Went on family vacation (5hr drive and 1hr + ferry trip). While watching my tank my dad noticed water level drop and no flow. I got the message at 11 in the evening while just getting ready for bed. Needless to say I hopped in the car and drove through the night and was waiting at my lfs to pick up a new pump. Had it installed in minutes and was back on my way to vacation destination.

I certainly could have asked my father to do it but to ask then the hassle of trying to explain over the phone.....it wouldn't have gone well.

Now pump is next to sump already plumbed. Just a matter of unthreading and threading a union and plugging it in.
That experience taught me a lot.

 

[Big G]

Does anyone recommend any less expensive backups for a RO Varios 4 ? Thanks. Sorry to hear this happened to you OP. My float switch on my Varios went out after 3 months. It works now with it disabled.

My backup is a Jebao DC4000. Tried to use it as my main pump, but it was too noisy. So it works great on my mixing station in the garage where it is my backup. Very powerful pump. Just too whinny. I understand the new Jebao's are much quieter as they modified the design quite a bit. But I've also heard they have gone up in price.

 

[trmiv]

That’s why I don’t bother with fancy DC pumps at all. It’s a return pump. I don’t need features. I just want it to reliably take water from my sump and put it in the display and not have a controller failure or something else with the over complicated stuff associated with DC pumps. I just run the Eheim 1262 all the time. It’s not fancy but it’s been running reliably for 13 years.

 

[wiselyy73]

A backup pump laying around is just not enough. You should had them both plumbed with check valves in the tank. In a matter of failure just switch on and off each others with a controller. Specially for those who travels a lot this method is highly recommend.

 

[Thingsibuild]

I run two oversized DC pumps at a quarter power each. Then if one stops the tank will not be affected.