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Rio Pumps

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"Rio pumps suck. I know as I've been keeping reef tanks for years and have had more than one fail on me. Go with a maxiJet, they are about 100 times more reliable. "

YES!!!! I too have kept reef tanks, hence the Screen name, Ocelaris stands for Amphipron Ocelaris, the latin name for Clown fish (one species). I have lost about 3 rio pumps, but I am currently using 2 maxijet power heads and they rock! Damn that's friggin ironic... Cheers to Reef tanks and Computers! Best, Bill
 
Ocelaris said:
Cheers to Reef tanks and Computers! Best, Bill

And I thought I was the only one to have more than one expensive hobby!! :D ha ha

I have a false perc in my reef tank now.

brothernod- Rio's are the least reliable powerhead you can buy. They are notorious for failing. MaxiJets are much better and cost the same.

- Fade
 
I was just sharing that I have heard that they can be fine if you don't turn them on and off. That's all.

And I would think that a reef tank is a lot harder on a pump than watercooling, cause watercooling will only use pure distilled water, no crap goin through it.
 
brothernod said:
And I would think that a reef tank is a lot harder on a pump than watercooling, cause watercooling will only use pure distilled water, no crap goin through it.

I didn't mean to come across like I was attacking you. That's not what I meant to do. ;)

If there is crap running through a pump in a reef tank then you've got problems! :) I wouldn't think that pumping saltwater vs freshwater would make a difference as these pumps are designed to do either. MTBF is the same in both environments.

- Fade
 
u didn't come across as attacking me. it's okay.


lets just leave it at this, Rio pumps are far from the most reliable, but they aren't total crap like ocz ram.
 
I have a rio180 in my 1 gallon reservoir, I've had it for almost a year and have yet to have it fail on me, I usually run it 24/7 unless I am doing maitainence or some sort of testing.


It's quiet, pumps my water so I don't complain.
 
The two main things that fail on Rio pumps are they either stop pumping (due to needing to be cleaned constantly), or the case cracks and leaks. This might not be a bad thing for a watercooling setup, but the copper from the coils leaches into the water and that is bad for an saltwater invertibrates (ie, it kills them). It also allows stray voltage into the water. That might be a problem as the stray voltage would move from your water, to the block, to your chip. If you are hellbent on getting a Rio make sure it is a UL listed pump. Not all of the Rio's are, in fact most of them aren't. This is a fairly new thing to them (within the last year). The amount of voltage depends on the size of the pump, but it is in the mV range. I'll look up what the amount was in the tests that were run. One way to solve this problem would be to add a titanium grounding probe to your resevoir and make sure it is properly grounded. That will remove any stray voltage. They run like $10-15 for a good grounding probe.

- Fade
 
I never noticed anything like a copper coil on my pump ??


if I take off the intake "cover" all I really see is the intake champer which leads to the impellar and whatnot or whatever is in there.


Hmm.. Well I also run water wetter in my system, do you think that would help with the "problem" like it does with the battery effect of alum + copper ??
 
What I'm talking about is inside the case, where the motor windings are at. The part that is supposedly sealed. They are notorious for leaking around the point where the power cord goes into the case. I'm really not familiar with what water wetter does so I can't tell you if it will remove stray voltage...although I don't know how it could do that without being grounded somehow. I think anyone using a watercooling system would benefit from a grounding probe. It's cheap insurance, you know? It can't do anything but help because all pumps put out some stray current into the water.

- Fade
 
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