Skimmer pump noise

[boehm742]

Hello, i have a bubble magus NAC7 ive had for years now. It has been a great skimmer for the most part. Im having an issue with it being NOISY. One other time a couple years ago i had this same issue and thought oh ill just by a new pump. Worked fine but now again is making the horrid rattle sound. I tried both pumps, swapped impellers and 99 percent of the time i get the noise posted in this youtubers video. Can anyone provide any insight on whats causing this sound? Surely something to do with the impeller even tho it looks as if its new?

here is a youtubers video of the same pump and same issue.

 

[Water Dog]

It sounds like the impeller shaft is vibrating as the air is being chopped up. Just trying to troubleshoot here, but are you sure there’s not a bushing missing on the plastic pump intake to stabilize the impeller shaft?

 

[theMeat]

Turn up sound on music or tv, noise goes away

 

[BeejReef]

It sounds like the impeller shaft is vibrating as the air is being chopped up. Just trying to troubleshoot here, but are you sure there’s not a bushing missing on the plastic pump intake to stabilize the impeller shaft?

Great guess! If that is the case, sometimes a snippet of airline or RO tubing can be used to replace the bushing.

 

[boehm742]

It sounds like the impeller shaft is vibrating as the air is being chopped up. Just trying to troubleshoot here, but are you sure there’s not a bushing missing on the plastic pump intake to stabilize the impeller shaft?

Both ends of the impeller have the rubber bushings. Im leaning toward the needlewheel on the shaft. There is about a 3/4 turn worth of play and ive read instances on other skimmers of joining the impeller and the magnet with super glue(not to the shaft tho). I have two spare impellers so i may give it a shot on one of them.

 

[Water Dog]

It sounds like that play is the most likely culprit of that vibration noise. Do you recall if that play was there when the pumps / impellers were new?

 

[Jefdav84]

Found this thread on a google search as I am having the same issue. Have an SCA 301 skimmer with Atman Ph 1100 pump. SCA replaced the Pump once already. Noise went away, but now it is back again with the new pump. There is no noise really when the Venturi is not connected, but as soon as it is connected it is super loud. Stopping the airflow on the airline turns it back to normal as seen here. Did anyone here find any sort of resolution?

I may give this superglue trick a shot to see if that works

 

[Blue Spot Octopus]

You can get a boiling pot of water, put the airline in it and let the pump suck the water into itself, which may help with the noise.

 

[Jefdav84]

You can get a boiling pot of water, put the airline in it and let the pump suck the water into itself, which may help with the noise.

Just submerge the whole pump in the boiling water?

 

[itsdorny]

@boehm742 this is a shot in the dark. I have the same issue as you described in this post initially. I know it was some time ago, but did you ever find a solution? I have taken my skimmer apart 50 times and replaced the needle. I am about to buy a new skimmer if I cannot find a solution.