Cali Kid Corals

Pump maintenance

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yngplo

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Hey everyone,

What’s the best way to maintenance pumps in an aquarium? I’m trying to clean out my Jebao CP90 pump because I noticed it became significantly louder recently. Is there any one best way to do it?


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Soak in vinegar, preferably overnight or at least several hours. Most of the buildup with come right off or will easily be cleaned with a brush.


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Citric acid soak: 5% solution, which is about 1 cup dry per 1 gallon tap water.

How long to leave it soaking is very subjective, and some people have strong opinions. You should take heart that thousands of people successfully use long and short soaks successfully. If you have more buildup you’ll likely need a longer soak, soaking overnight won’t hurt if you have to (or forget to take it out), and makes scrubbing trivially easy- the crud just falls off. If you are in more of a hurry especially if the pump serves an important function and needs to get back to work, you could soak as little as 30-60 min. I’ve noticed if there is a lot of buildup but I need to get the pump back into service, soaking for 30 min, then a good scrub, then continue to soak 30 min more, then thorough scrub under tap water works great but is a lot more scrubbing work.

The other good thing about short soaks if that’s all you have time for is that it will kill whatever the biological buildup is so that even if you can’t scrub everything off at least it won’t continue to grow when you put it back into service; it has to start over again.

The main problem with citric acid for those who like to reuse it like me is that it develops a bacterial film after about a week, which is gross. If you want to make up a larger amount and keep it longer, you can add 0.1% sodium benzoate (a common food preservative), which works out to about 5 ml (1 tsp) dry per gallon. It won’t dissolve in the citric acid solution, so you need to dissolve it first in tap water then add to the citric acid.

After the soak/scrub wash off under running tap water before going back into your tank. Citric acid is not harmful to the tank in small amounts (it’s a naturally occurring organic acid, and part of normal metabolism in coral and fish) but it’s easy enough to wash off just to be safe.
 
Solitaryensis said:
Well I stand corrected then :). I’ve soaked vinegar for years without any issues.


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Not at ALL. I too used vinegar for over 15 years before switching to citric acid. It is just so much better I get excited when the topic comes up :)
 
I’ve only cleaned my Eheim 1260 twice in 7 years... But agree on avoiding vinegar. Old toothbrush helps clean the impeller area.
 
Where do you folks pick up your Citric acid? Is there any specific brand? Thanks for all the replies and advice


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I use Milliard brand from Amazon. Price recently went up, presumably because of its use in cleaning, but still not very expensive and is of reliable quality.
 
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