Return Pump Challenges
- Thread starter Morpheosz
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Yup, and I wouldn't be surprised if it would even push more than that. I've got 10ft of head pressure in plumbing bends alone and another 8ft in vertical height as well. It truly doesn't seem like it phases it. The first time I turned it on, I assumed I'd need 100% power. So I just turned it straight to 100%. That was a mistake. It seriously shot water the entire length of my 4ft tank and up and over the glass. It made one heck of a mess. Mind you, I'm also running dual return nozzles. The best part is for black friday you can get it for $350. Tough to beat that. I also must say, the app, and built in heart beat and notifications are excellent. I've never had an issue with anything in the year I've had it.
On second thought have tried eflux that claims 21’ twice for 13-14’ head situation. They lasted 6and 9 months before flow was crap. Cleaned them, nothing….
Tried jebao 18000 with a claimed 24’ head which lasted a bit more than a year before flow was declining. My lfs has a 20 year old mag drive pumping 16 vertical feet, and about 50 horizontal feet.
Wish you luck with your pump. Would be curious to know how it lasts
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Morpheosz
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Thank you for sharing, you definitely have a near identical setup! This is really intriguing, especially given they are once again on a really good sale price for the holiday. The apex integration is also super interesting as I could adjust while out of town if I need to bump it up or down. What has been your experience with the noise? Seems that, and connectivity, are people’s main complaints.
I will say that its not dead silent, but its not loud either. Certainly quieter than a AC pump and in my experience most wave makers. A very slight hum when standing next to it. For me and my sump, the water running through the sump and my wavemakers in my frag tank are louder than the pump. For basement setup its not something you'll hear. Another reason to buy the 9.0 over the 7.0 is that when you turn a pump down it tends to be quieter at lower speeds. Over time it also seemed to quiet down compared to when I first installed it. I think overall, if it were directly under the tank inside a stand, there might be a very slightly audible hum, but certainly only loud enough to drive the audiophiles to dislike the pump.
As for connectivity, I've not had any issues with that. Making sure you use a 2.4ghz wifi connection is important. I know for my router personally, I have two separate connection names for 2.4ghz and 5ghz. So it was super easy to connect and setup. If you only have one connection name, then you may have to do some extra leg work to make sure your connection point is 2.4ghz. I'm convinced 90% of the connectivity issues people experience with aquarium related tech is user error and I always take those reviews with a grain of salt. So far, across all my gear, I've not once had an issue I couldn't resolve with a simple power off/on.
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Morpheosz
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Cool, that’s what I’d expect from a premium DC pump, but surprisingly some of the reviews talk about noise that can be heard a floor away which seems kind of crazy for any pump! I don’t need a silent pump in my laundry room but I surely don’t want to hear it upstairs!
I've heard a lot of this type of complaint about using DC pumps in a head pressure situation. With Sicce's 5 year warranty, I was confident enough to give it a shot. I've cleaned the pump three times since I bought it a year ago. Usually when it tells me to do maintenance through the app. I notice that usually about three months after cleaning I bump up the flow 5-10% to keep the same flow rate through the sump. Then usually a month later when I clean it, I do notice an increase in flow after cleaning so that I return the power to where I usually run it. Overall, I'm still at the 38% power that I've run it on since day one with no discernable difference in flow a year later. So compared to you're experience, even if it quits tomorrow, its still lasted quite a bit longer than pumps you've tried. Plus if there ever is an issue, I'm confident Sicce will take care of it.
I'm willing to bet they either have it hard plumbed or use hardware store vinyl tubing. The hardware store tubing is too stiff to prevent noise IMO. Use a nice soft tubing like that you can get from BRS. It does look like you've already got that though so you should be fine.
One thing people forget is that the pvc pipes can and will help the noise travel, so sound isolation is important. I did have vinyl tubing originally and switched it out to some softer tubing, it made a noticeable difference in noise overall noise and vibration that could be felt in the PVC piping.
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Morpheosz
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Yeah, I am using the silicon tubing, definitely worth it!
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Morpheosz
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So based on this thread, and the timing of holiday sale prices, I decided to give the Sicce SDC 9.0 a shot. It was $120 off on Cyber Monday which brought it down into that not super crazy price range.
So far so good - I really like the fact that it's controllable via Apex so I can easily tweak it if it does drift when I'm out of town. It's easily more powerful than the last 3 pumps I tried, I'm running it at 70% and getting my target 400gph. That makes me happy as it gives me lots of wiggle room to tweak it up or down and hopefully not running flat out like my other pumps will make it less likely to drift. It is definitely noisier than any of the other DC pumps I've tried, even the cheap ones, but it is not remotely at problematic levels and I can't hear it outside the utility room which is all that matters. I could see why people would be disappointed though, I think I would be if I needed to put it under a stand in the room with the tank. For a $450 pump from a brand like Sicce, I would expect best in class noise levels but my Jebao and EFluxes were quite a bit quieter at half or less the price.
At any rate, so far so good, thanks for the tip @Kodski! If this doesn't work in the long run, I have other great recommendations on this thread to try, thanks everyone!
So far so good - I really like the fact that it's controllable via Apex so I can easily tweak it if it does drift when I'm out of town. It's easily more powerful than the last 3 pumps I tried, I'm running it at 70% and getting my target 400gph. That makes me happy as it gives me lots of wiggle room to tweak it up or down and hopefully not running flat out like my other pumps will make it less likely to drift. It is definitely noisier than any of the other DC pumps I've tried, even the cheap ones, but it is not remotely at problematic levels and I can't hear it outside the utility room which is all that matters. I could see why people would be disappointed though, I think I would be if I needed to put it under a stand in the room with the tank. For a $450 pump from a brand like Sicce, I would expect best in class noise levels but my Jebao and EFluxes were quite a bit quieter at half or less the price.
At any rate, so far so good, thanks for the tip @Kodski! If this doesn't work in the long run, I have other great recommendations on this thread to try, thanks everyone!
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Morpheosz
Active Member
If this doesn't work out, I will hit you up!
My thoughts and feelings about the noise are exactly the same. Glad you're enjoying it so far! I did find the noise lessened over time. But I'm not sure if this was just my experience or something everyone can expect.
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Morpheosz
Active Member
Just an update for anyone interested, so far very happy with this Sicce pump, it's been rock steady at my target 400gph @67% power. Really great to be able to fine tune it by single digit percentages through the Apex! Hopefully it stays this way
Dburr1014
10K Club member
You will like this pump. I'm at 66%@ 14'head. Been running a few years, I don't think I'm at the 5 year warrenty yet. I've only cleaned it twice and it still pumps.Just an update for anyone interested, so far very happy with this Sicce pump, it's been rock steady at my target 400gph @67% power. Really great to be able to fine tune it by single digit percentages through the Apex! Hopefully it stays this way
On a side note, reading this thread, seems you've had pumps that just drop out of change? Have you checked the electricity source? Sometimes things loosen up or breakers go bad. I had a dryer that I thought was bad once. After buying a new one, installing it, and dealing with the same problem, I checked the breaker. Sure enough, they are not supposed to make noise.
It was on its way out.Just food for thought.
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Morpheosz
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OK, for anyone else who may be running into this, I may have had an epiphany as to why my previous pumps have been slowly losing power. I cleaned some coralline off my weir in the tank and caused it to get sucked into my main drain and my flow instantly dropped by 20%. I took the plumbing apart for the first time, removing the gate valve, and lo and behold I learned a couple of really instructive things:
1) To maintain my 400gph flow rate with ~12' of pressure on the gate as my sump is in the basement, the gate is only open a sliver.
2) That makes it easy for little things like bits of coralline to get stuck in there and have a notable impact on flow.
After clearing the little bit of coralline out of the valve, it was back to full flow. Since then, the flow has dropped 5-10% a few times, and each time I just temporarily open the valve a couple turns then close it back (I have a mark on it so I know where to return it) and voila, the flow reduction magically clears up.
This was a bit of a duh in hindsight, but until I removed my valve, I had no idea that it was ~90% closed to maintain my flow rate, and now it makes perfect sense that little bits of things have likely been getting stuck in there all along and I went crazy adjusting the pump when all I needed to do was clear the valve.
With that said, I'm still happy I ended up with this Sicce pump, it's nice to have a pump running at 2/3 power and adjustable via Apex in 1% increments. Gives me a lot of flexibility to manage remotely!
1) To maintain my 400gph flow rate with ~12' of pressure on the gate as my sump is in the basement, the gate is only open a sliver.
2) That makes it easy for little things like bits of coralline to get stuck in there and have a notable impact on flow.
After clearing the little bit of coralline out of the valve, it was back to full flow. Since then, the flow has dropped 5-10% a few times, and each time I just temporarily open the valve a couple turns then close it back (I have a mark on it so I know where to return it) and voila, the flow reduction magically clears up.
This was a bit of a duh in hindsight, but until I removed my valve, I had no idea that it was ~90% closed to maintain my flow rate, and now it makes perfect sense that little bits of things have likely been getting stuck in there all along and I went crazy adjusting the pump when all I needed to do was clear the valve.
With that said, I'm still happy I ended up with this Sicce pump, it's nice to have a pump running at 2/3 power and adjustable via Apex in 1% increments. Gives me a lot of flexibility to manage remotely!
