Echotech marine MP40W???

What I've found asking the same question is that 90% of the people that own them swear by them. There are the 10% who really didn't want to drop that kind of cash but did and immediately saw their flaws - louder than ecpected and price. From what I've seen, if they're the loudest thing on my tank, I'm super excited. My $.2

 

Which model did you go with?

My LFS has the vortech thats why I am leaning towards it.

 

A closed loop on an oceans motion, maxijets w/mods (2000 gph each and $50), modded K4's, surge tanks, wave boxes, etc. etc. Everything has its pros and cons and would be worth a look before you drop $800 on a couple MP40's.

here is a recent thread I read that made me a little skeptical about vortechs. I have 0 personal experience with them besides seeing them running at an LFS.

I got a vortech! - Reef Central Online Community

~Will.

 

Thanks for the info. Its alot of money for it but if its worth it then its money well spent IMO. I was in Gville yesterday and was looking at them. I am leaning towards them due to being semi local.

 

Well.... The only time I care about price is right before I pay. Once the money is out of my pocket I don't care. I don't have a hard time saying I wasted my money. It was hard to take the plunge on this. Now that it is in my tank..... holy crap!

Enough can't be said about the flow. It is just so incredibly wide and diffuse it is simply amazing. Like a normal power head is a garden hose and this thing is a river.

Now mine was on for 2 months and the wet side started falling off. I have parts inbound to me now. Hopefully this won't be a repeating thing. I do know there are problems and it is a complicated design, but I think they are worth it. Their flow, the modes, syncing them wave modes....ect. Other pumps have problems too.

So I put my K4 back in my tank while waiting for for parts. I put it in the same place...... I want my 40 back even more now. Incredible. And understand. The pump is big. It flows 3000 gph. A Korilia that put out that much would be a lot too....but it is the type of flow. And I only have mine turned up about 60% in my 90. More than that is like a huricane. We will see about longgevity, but the product is amazing and every bit it's advertising.

 

I have looked into the Mjet w/mods, surge tanks and wave boxs. I am not dissatisfied with the Koralias I have now. I am looking to clean up the tank so I dont have all the extra powerheads in there. If I dont get the Vortech I will probably go with the M/jet Mod for flow but they are still bulky IMO

 

Thanks for your reply. My LFS has the MP40W on their 120 and it appears from what I could tell to be doing an amazing job. I am still not 100% positive if this is what I want but my wife said Santa would get it for me if I wanted it. I really like the cleanliness of the tank by not having all the extra PH's in them to get the same flow. Would you purchase one again knowing what you know now? If it failed 3 yrs from now would you repurchase again or buy something different?

 

I response to what illwill has been saying, it is true that some people don't want to spend the money on them, but if you look at what the vortechs do compared to other powerheads, there really isn't much on the market that is comparable. I ran maxijet 1200s with the modification and they produced really good flow, but it was very centralized and strong, couldn't face it towards anything except the surface. They are also very bulky and not very good to look at. Korlias are nice, and don't look that bad, but you need multiple ones IMO to get good overall flow and they have centralized flow. The main reason I went with the vortech was its customizable flow rate and minimum tank space taken up. I really like a "clean" looking tank and these really help achieve that. The only thing better would be a closed loop system.

There are some negatives, price being one, but also the noise which IMO isn't bad, my overflow is louder, but if your in a quiet room you can hear it. I read through that thread on RC and some points are valid, but people complained of it "crashing" a lot. I don't find this to be true. You do need to take care and follow instructions when setting it up, especially with the pin spacer, but if it's set up right you should be fine. The wet side can also twist off if the nut holding the impeller assembly is over tightened. I've had this happen when I cleaned it and tightened the nut. I figured it out and loosened it and it hasn't fallen off since, about 5-6 months. Vortech also has great customer service. The tunzes are nice but with the controller, they are expensive as well and take up more room without having the very broad flow pattern.

In the end, IMO, the cons of the vortech out weigh the benefits. This may sound harsh, but some people who bash vortechs do it b/c they view them as elitist. I am a member on other online forums and have found this to be true. Some will go off on a rant about the noise, price and how other powerheads can do the same thing without ever having used or even seen one in action. (I dont' mean this to apply to anyone on this thread b/c I don't believe it does) I just wanted to make that point to allow you to gain context in your decision.

As if you will need 2 on the 120, I would use 2, but if you can't do that right now, I would get the one and use one of your korlias as a supplement.

 

I went with the 6305 and a single controller. When I am ready to add the second 6305, my lfs will give me full credit towards the multi-controller. I also wanted to get rid of clutter in my tank. One is sufficient for my 150, bu we will be adding the second one. Having only one limits the options for best placement and I do have a few dead spots.

Sounds like our decisions are similar and ultimately I wanted to support my lfs too, didnt want to have to wait for shipping and knew that if I ever needed service all I had to do was drop it off to him. I don't mind keeping him in business. He has helped us a lot!

From all the research I did, either one is a great choice.

 

I had the mj w/mod kits before the tunze and although some people have success with running them on a wave maker, I did NOT. I had issues with polarity on start up. Even after taking them off of the wave maker, if I turned the pumps off to feed, when I plugged them back in, the propeller would run backwards. Sometimes this would stop after a couple of minutes, but most times not and I would have to play with it for awhile. This got to be very tedious after a bit. Also, if you check out the mod kits on marinedepot.com - they say that they are not compatible with wave makers.

Just one more thing to think about and just my .02.