High Tide Aquatics

What's the quietest return pump available these days?

iCon

Supporting Member
Being home so much, this Eheim 1260 (640gph) is driving me nuts. It could need a new impeller, it could need a good cleaning, and it could just need to go. Let me know what you're using :)
 
And at a price point between the Eheim and Red Dragon is a pretty quiet Ecotech Vectra.
Oh man do not get me start on the vectra lol. Hopefully they fixed their issues now, but because of vectra I almost lost all my coral and had to basically buy an extra pump while waiting to get a decent pump shipped...
You really get what you pay for...
Red dragon is bit expensive I agree (though in my case have I bought red dragon from the get go I would have saved 500$ wasted in vectra)
Most mid to high tear pumps are low noise especially the DC ones..I think.
My personal experience is with vectra, red dragon DC, and couple syncra sicci on the AC..
 
I find the eheim impellers wear out after a few years (and make a loud racket) but the housings keep on ticking just fine through several impeller replacements.

The reef octopus varios pumps have been working well for me (skimmer, carx) - they're extremely quiet and I'm pretty comfortable with coralvue support. They come apart for cleaning really easily, and they know to turn themselves off instead of burning themselves out when the impeller gets stuck from OD'ing way too much 2part.
 
I’ve never been able to hear my jebao DCT4000 and I have it running at 100%. And I just got the DCP15000 which has a sine wave flow mode and can let you know if it’s loud at all. I trust the pumps since it’s what Fish of Hex runs his setup with, and I have the Apex alarms. I think any pump has the same chance of a snail getting in so if pump failure is a concern you could try the BRS ULM recommendation of 2 smaller pumps working together.


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This Eheim has been running since 2013... I’ve probably cleaned it twice, and with the exception of power outages, pretty sure it’s never been turned off... :D

The reality is that it’s not even rattling or making tons of noise, it’s just not silent.

Was looking at Vectra and Sicce, but will definitely look into the Varios - Thanks @treylane!
 
Right now it is. :)
Yeah but if we're going to follow that train of logic, it really doesn't move much water :D

But anyways, usually DC pumps are going to be quieter than AC pumps, but if they're resting directly against glass, or you have hard tubing directly to the pump instead of a silicone tube spacer then you're probably going to hear pumps anyways.
 
Oh man do not get me start on the vectra lol. Hopefully they fixed their issues now, but because of vectra I almost lost all my coral and had to basically buy an extra pump while waiting to get a decent pump shipped...
You really get what you pay for...
Red dragon is bit expensive I agree (though in my case have I bought red dragon from the get go I would have saved 500$ wasted in vectra)
Most mid to high tear pumps are low noise especially the DC ones..I think.
My personal experience is with vectra, red dragon DC, and couple syncra sicci on the AC..

I have actually had a pretty good experience with Vectras. I have a number of them running at home and have been pretty happy with them. Speak of the devil though, I’ve been having some issues with one (an M1) that was my longest running (4+ years), but turns out it was an issue they’re going to cover under warranty and they’re sending me out a replacement m2 that will be here next week. I was pretty surprised they were still covering me after 4 years.
 
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I have actually had a pretty good experience with Vectras. I have a number of them running at home and have been pretty happy with them. Speak of the devil though, I’ve been having some issues with one (an M1) that was my longest running (4+ years), but turns out it was an issue they’re going to cover under warranty and they’re sending me out a replacement m2 that will be here next week. I was pretty surprised they were still covering me after 4 years.
Well when the issue is design issue, its not really a credit to them replacing beyond warranty. They should have done a recall. It took 2 weeks to end me my replacement which I clearly never used and left it in the garage..
They are not the first or last one to do such thing, of not recalling even thu the product is defective..I see this common in this industry cause it's small and not as regulated as its ran by small private companies in general so accountability is close to none..
To give a prospective, I lost close to 8 grands in trachys from the metal and copper spike the vectra did when it melted in my tank.. then I had to go on a rush buy a temp return pump from Neptune aquatics, then placed an order for the red dragon which arrived before my vectra replacement arrived..
 
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I really like the reef octopus varios pumps. I’ve got one running my tank that’s 4 years old and never misses a beat. I did replace it out of caution a while back, but now I just swap out and clean every 3 months.
 
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