QUIETEST wavemaker?

pappu · Apr 14, 2020

I use 2 Nero 5's for almost a year now in my 47" 100G tank, and I am so impressed with that. it's super silent and time-saving when it comes to maintenance. Great pump

dan3949 · Apr 14, 2020

I have had MP40s/20s and Tunzes. Absolutly no comparison in 1) Noise and 2) Reliability/Maintenance.
Tunze is 100% more silent and is 150% more reliable/less maintenance.
I have Tunzes that have been going strong for 5+ years with nothing more than an annual cleaning. Also, they are completely silent. Have been since day 1.

MartinWaite · Apr 14, 2020

The wavemaker making the most noise must go to ecotech range of wavemakers I'll never own another and I'm glad I was lucky enough to be able to sell mine on to someone. For the price of them new they should be silent yet they aren't.
One of the quietest but on a fixed speed was my jabao gyre and it was rarely cleaned and when I did I'd just place it in a bucket of citric acid and switch it on for an hour or 2 depending on what else I was doing at the same time, then rinse it off in tap water then RO and back in the tank it would go.

piranhaman00 · Apr 14, 2020

My tunze 6105 and 6095 are completely dead silent on the highest setting, really incredible.

Tony the Fish · Apr 14, 2020

I like the gyre. And yes if your house is absolutely silent and you listen very carefully you can hear s slight hum if you stand right next to the tank. But really it's silent

sarcophytonIndy · Apr 14, 2020

DBR_Reef said:
If you want really quiet then a combination of slower speeds, larger props, constant speed, and good isolation is key. I've settled on a tunze 6255 at 20% on a sea sweep, a Jeboa CP-150 (weirdly this was the quietest of all the gyre pumps I tried at the time- and it requires basically no cleaning), and a custom tunze wavebox (with over-sized pump being under-driven). That is for a 180g. Like BlueZreef said, if you vary the gyre pumps (including jebao) they make horrific noise.

The Tunze Stream 3 is really quiet but there is some prop noise, especially at highest speeds, and I'm not a huge fan of the form factor. The Nero 5 seems quiet, although I have only heard it on a friends tank, but the larger prop size seems good for noise reduction.

I found MP40 QDs to be really loud, but I needed a lot of them because of the form factor and had to run them on higher speeds to get enough flow. I wasn't willing to spend $700 on a Mp60 to try them.

Remember that noise is all relative- what is quiet to one person might be really loud to another. Also chasing quiet can get very expensive. I would be just fine with a $200 tunze pump, but have a $500 tunze pump just to cut a little noise. And I've spent over $100 replacing all the fans in my lights with the quietest fans I could find.

I’m surprised you mention constant speed. Isn’t the whole point of a wave maker to vary the speed in order to produce water movements similar to the ocean

DBR_Reef · Apr 14, 2020

sarcophytonIndy said:
I’m surprised you mention constant speed. Isn’t the whole point of a wave maker to vary the speed in order to produce water movements similar to the ocean

Not being able to vary the speed quickly can reduce the variability of flow. But it does really decrease pump noise.

So I partially agree with you, but a couple other points:
1. The need for variable speed is partially a result of the kind-of poor design of typical wavemakers- a cone of hard, direct, unidirectional flow.
2. Most of the corals we grow come from below the fair weather wave base, meaning that they are actually more use to currents than wave action.
3. Currents are kind of hard to replicate in a square box, but gyre pumps do a pretty good job.
4. Some of the draw backs of a conventional powerhead can be mitigated with the use of a sea sweep (I actually have some problems with the build quality/longevity of sea sweeps, but they do wonders for flow, and are silent).
5. A wavebox can provide additional whole tank water movement, as long as you can find a pump that does well with the constant on/off cycling.

Basically I think that variable speed pumps might be one of the most inefficient ways of varying flow in a tank, and gives rise to pump propagation- when you only are using a pump at partial speed, some of the time, you end up needing many more pumps. I think at one point I had 6 large pumps (tunze 6105s) in a 180g, and still had dead spots. I can get significantly better and more variable flow with 1 gyre (2 would be better) and a single large pump on a sea sweep, with all pumps at a near constant speed (I do like to vary pumps on the hour time scale).

Wh00pS32 · Apr 14, 2020

MartinWaite said:
The wavemaker making the most noise must go to ecotech range of wavemakers I'll never own another and I'm glad I was lucky enough to be able to sell mine on to someone. For the price of them new they should be silent yet they aren't.
One of the quietest but on a fixed speed was my jabao gyre and it was rarely cleaned and when I did I'd just place it in a bucket of citric acid and switch it on for an hour or 2 depending on what else I was doing at the same time, then rinse it off in tap water then RO and back in the tank it would go.

I have to 100% disagree, i have 2 MP10 qd's running on half power in lagoon mode and they are silent.
Cant even hear them if i put my ear on the glass.

DHill6 · Apr 14, 2020

Agree with 2 mp10s, I use them on a Reefer 170, silent. Running lagoon, constant, reefcrest most of the day.

sarcophytonIndy · Apr 14, 2020

I have an old school MP40, and it is only noticeable above 80% and I generally run it at 60% in reef crest mode. It still moves a lot of water even at 60%. But It did take a while to get it dialed in. I had to mess with the glass thickness adjustment on the dry side gasket. But once I had it set correctly, it has been flawless.

KetchumAquatics · Apr 14, 2020

Im broke as a joke and I just bought 2 Jebao SLW-20's (Nero 5) and I am honestly impressed how silent they are while pumping out alot of flow. I got a 75gal 4ft tank and I am able to create a wave on 20% power with no noise. As long as they're sitting in the holder correct I cant hear a thing from them and my tanks are in my living room right behind the couch.

Plecosam · Apr 14, 2020

I wonder of many peoples ability to hear things, an underground shot firer might find a pump "dead silent" but the reality is his/her hearing is shot.

sarcophytonIndy · Apr 14, 2020

OK, well if you put your ear against the glass and can't hear the wavemaker, I would call that silent. Well, mine is not that silent, but from a few feet away, all I can hear is the soothing sound of water gently passing over the weir. No pumps, or fans, or skimmers, just gentle, barely perceptible water flowing over the weir.

fattiremike · Apr 14, 2020

I must get the ****** components that were made on a Friday afternoon. I have 2 MP40QDs and 2 xf330 gyres in a 120. I run everything on a wavemaking mode of one form or another from 30 to 100 percent. All of them are noisy. I was about to trash the 330s, they whined so much going up and down. But, I glued some of the hook side velcro to the feet and behold, the whine is gone. Now they are pretty quiet. My MP40s, not so much. My couch is 10 feet from the tank and I can clearly hear them running through their paces. I have two extra wetsides and the same deal. Not loud, but not quiet either. Certainly not silent. However, all of my pumps and skimmers, etc. are out in the garage, so ambient noise in the living room is very low. The most quiet, near silent pumps I have ever run were Tunze 6105's. I had to run an extra rubber bumper in them to keep them from clicking when going from 0 to 100% though. But, the pins that they used to connect everything together were crap and shorted out all the time. I see they have a design change to fix that.

mrlavalamp · Apr 14, 2020

Plecosam said:
I wonder of many peoples ability to hear things, an underground shot firer might find a pump "dead silent" but the reality is his/her hearing is shot.

WHAT?

sarcophytonIndy · Apr 14, 2020

fattiremike said:
I must get the ****** components that were made on a Friday afternoon. I have 2 MP40QDs and 2 xf330 gyres in a 120. I run everything on a wavemaking mode of one form or another from 30 to 100 percent. All of them are noisy. I was about to trash the 330s, they whined so much going up and down. But, I glued some of the hook side velcro to the feet and behold, the whine is gone. Now they are pretty quiet. My MP40s, not so much. My couch is 10 feet from the tank and I can clearly hear them running through their paces. I have two extra wetsides and the same deal. Not loud, but not quiet either. Certainly not silent. However, all of my pumps and skimmers, etc. are out in the garage, so ambient noise in the living room is very low. The most quiet, near silent pumps I have ever run were Tunze 6105's. I had to run an extra rubber bumper in them to keep them from clicking when going from 0 to 100% though. But, the pins that they used to connect everything together were crap and shorted out all the time. I see they have a design change to fix that.

I don't run anything at 100%. Even the DC return pump I only run at 65%. I found that the flow rate plateaued after 70%, so I backed it off a little and it is silent, and maybe will last a little longer.

fattiremike · Apr 14, 2020

sarcophytonIndy said:
I don't run anything at 100%. Even the DC return pump I only run at 65%. I found that the flow rate plateaued after 70%, so I backed it off a little and it is silent, and maybe will last a little longer.

If I can't run it at 100%, then why buy it? That's the way I see it.