Have you ever measured real water pump output flow rate?

"Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr." wrote in message ...
"Pszemol" verbositized:

This is kind of misleading for the custommer, who usually
expect the pump rating at 4' match the plumbing system he
has at his fish tank.

Amen! But all companies do whatever it takes to get their ratings the
highest, anyway they possibly can. It's akin to the labels on food
products! Who on this planet eats what they call a "serving"?

:-))

I have used everything from Little Giant and Hydrothruster II, to Mag
Drive and Generic. With Little Giant we have had problems with
burnout, oil leaks, housing corrosion, etc.
With many other externals (separate pump and motor combinations), we
have had problems with bearings and seals and on occasion winding
corrosion and failure.

I sent my LittleGiant pump back to the store today.
I hope I will not regret my decision to use QuietOne 3000 instead.
From what I hear from you and what I have read til now I think I won't.

And here I didn't know they made anything above the Maxi-Jet 1000!
[..]
I will agree that some other pumps move water at a lower power
consumption than the Maxi-Jet 1000 which eats more electricity than
normal, but it also has a much higher head pressure than all the rest
too, which must also be considered.

M-J gph watts
250 78 5
500 153 7.5
750 217 8.5
1000 265 20

From the list above I would guess that they change numbering and we
have model numbers 900 and 1200 consuming the same as old 750 and 1000.
So we can expect they did some improvements to the wet side of the
pump but the motor stayed the same with its max power consumption...
For what you are saying about 1000 all seems to apply to todays 1200
and whatever you say about 750 seems to apply to 900. Keep it in mind
when you be ready to order the next box of pumps for you :-))

I don't know what Maxi-Jet's cost for sure these days, I have seen
them from $29.95 all the way up to over $45.00, but we only paid like
$14.98 each for them through an aquatic retailer, by the case, in
1995/96. I think by the each, they were something like $24.95 at
retail back then.

They go "on sale" from time to time and this is te time I try to order
them, but regular price at www.petsolutions.com is $18.99 for model 900
and $20.99 for each for model 1200 - www.drsfostersmith.com is even cheaper:
$15.99 for the smaller one and $18.69 for 1200. This is pretty cheap considering
you payed price 'by the case'. Hard competition benefits the custommer :-)

For most of our purposes, the 1000's are almost too powerful, and on
some fluids, the tubing must be constricted to slow them down a bit,
but the 750's don't have the necessary ooomph to get the heavy fluids
moving, and adding more of them seems to defeat the purpose entirely.

Running in reef as a powerhead we do not need big pressure like
is needed for high head applications. So for powerhead is it better
to use 2 model 900 with little less flow but less than 1/2 the wattage
than one model 1200 with little more flow but twice the wattage.

"Pszemol" verbositized:

I sent my LittleGiant pump back to the store today.
I hope I will not regret my decision to use QuietOne 3000 instead.
From what I hear from you and what I have read til now I think I won't.

I shouldn't say this, but in my fathers business they sold Little
Giant pumps for decades, for fountain use.
A proper (to code) hard installation of the pump voids the warranty.
He sold enough of these pumps over the years that he could demand
refunds for defective pumps, in a roundabout way, honoring the
warranty on a personal level that Little Giant would not honor
themselves via the customer.

I don't have any paperwork handy to look up the models that gave him
the most grief, but it was a good percentage of them.

In the field of hydroponics, we use Maxi-Jets more than any other
brand and have the least amount of problems.

If you are familiar with our AZ-NO3 product, Maxi-Jet 1000s are used
to feed the product from the cooled steam kettles to the packaging
machine reservoir, and twin Maxi-Jet 1000s running back to back feed
the bottle filling injector heads, which are roughly 4 feet above the
reservoir tanks low level point. The viscosity of the AZ-NO3 product
is as high as it can get without the product turning into solid
crystals. We have had only one Maxi-Jet 1000 quit functioning in
roughly 3 years used for these applications.

From the list above I would guess that they change numbering and we
have model numbers 900 and 1200 consuming the same as old 750 and 1000.
So we can expect they did some improvements to the wet side of the
pump but the motor stayed the same with its max power consumption...
For what you are saying about 1000 all seems to apply to todays 1200
and whatever you say about 750 seems to apply to 900. Keep it in mind
when you be ready to order the next box of pumps for you :-))

Thank You, I will!

Now that you mention it, the new impellers for the Maxi-Jet's are
slightly larger than the old ones, so they do have a little less
bypass loss. This is good in one sense, but in another, it adds extra
work to the pumps in our applications. We continually stop the flow
of liquid while the bottles shift under the nozzles.

They go "on sale" from time to time and this is te time I try to order
them, but regular price at www.petsolutions.com is $18.99 for model 900
and $20.99 for each for model 1200 - www.drsfostersmith.com is even cheaper:
$15.99 for the smaller one and $18.69 for 1200. This is pretty cheap considering
you payed price 'by the case'. Hard competition benefits the custommer :-)

We probably could have purchased them at wholesale from one of our
vendors, but we like to support the retailers whenever possible. They
usually give us great quantity breaks on most things, while still
turning a little profit that they may have otherwise not seen.

As far as consumables and raw products, we have to buy those as
cheaply as possible to keep the eventual product cost at the consumer
level as low as possible.

Running in reef as a powerhead we do not need big pressure like
is needed for high head applications. So for powerhead is it better
to use 2 model 900 with little less flow but less than 1/2 the wattage
than one model 1200 with little more flow but twice the wattage.

Agreed, and it's also safer for the aquaria too! If one should fail,
at least the other will usually keep some water flowing, if they are
running back to back.

I had a sump in my basement that fed an aquarium in my living room.
This is where I was originally using the Hydrothruster II. Six
Maxi-Jets now handle this with ease!
But not after we had to deal with a priming issue with the first
attempt and changing the whole lift setup a couple of times to get it
humming the way we wanted it.
Basically meaning, start-up after a short power outage had to be
automatic and without human intervention.
In a sense, the system we used was akin to foot valves to prevent
backdrain of the system during an outage. Except they contain
standpipes in place of foot valves which added to much head pressure.

TTUL
Gary