9440

[ROCHESTERREEFER]

a friend of mine has a 9440 which impressed me. i recently purchased 1 from a fellow reefer,it has the new pumps. i've had it in sump for 2 weeks and it won't stop over flowing and the collection cup fills within a min or two. any suggestions?

 

[rvitko]

Check the length of the outlet pipe, it should be 4.7" long or 120mm. Some older ones were 130mm long.

 

[ROCHESTERREEFER]

the pipe measures 4 5/8"

 

[rvitko]

That sounds correct. What is the water level? Do you have the sponges or a filter bag on the outflow? Has anything been added to the tank recently in terms of additives, algaecides, vitamins, etc?

 

[ROCHESTERREEFER]

10" water ...i have sponges ...no additives

 

[rvitko]

Is it feasible to lower the water level a little or raise the skimmer, the ideal would be 7-8" of water. This will help because the pump will have to work harder against head pressure.

 

[ROCHESTERREEFER]

i had the same thought b4 i saw your response. i now have it in 8.25" . i had to chock both pumps back and have been slowly opening them. i have actually eliminated the overflo pipe and i'm getting great results. i should also tell you my only option is to have the unit in the first section where the water returns to the sump and i know this isn't optimal, but so far this is the only way i've had any success. any thoughts?? and thank you for your responses......walt

 

[rvitko]

I would put the pipe back, but maybe give it sometime to run and skim a little. The only drawback with your set up is microbubbles being pumped back into the tank.

 

[HTSL]

Could I ask if this is 120mm from the base of the skimmer of from the underside of the outlet? Regards

 

[rvitko]

Neither, it is the length of the actual pipe on its own.

 

[HTSL]

Thanks - Sorry for hijacking the thread but I have exactly the same problem. Ive got the skimmer in 240mm of water but after reading a few threads I reduced it to 205mm and initially it fired into life allowing me to fully open both air pipes. However after a couple of hours it overfilled the cup again.

Ive now reduced it to 195mm and seems to work alot better but the head is very low in the neck. Is there an optimum height for these skimmers to work at on full air?

 

[rvitko]

160-270mm is the recommended depth, the optimum seems to be between 190 and 220mm. The lower the water level the more backpressure is on the pump as the weight of the water in the column is fighting the pump

 

[HTSL]

Thanks, but why state up to 270mm if the skimmer just isn't going to perform at that depth? Not a critism, just more out of curiosity!

 

[rvitko]

It is the maximum range that it can work in, but it is not the ideal. The airflow would have to be restricted somewhat, but it can be made to work at this depth.

 

[HTSL]

Ok, Ive tried a few more mods but Im still not overly pleased with the results.

Ive dropped the level to 195mm but it still, without warning, would just suddenly fill the cup within seconds. What Ive done now is tipped over the outflow pipe to reduce the water level in the body but this does create a skum line within the skimmer body, which Im sure will affect the skimmer performance long-term if not regularly cleaned, which isn't easy as its below the black collar. I also have to add that the skimmate is not very impressive. I only get what I would describe as a light dusting of matter on the neck and any skimmate in the collection cup is like tea coloured water.

As an experiment, I plumbed back in my Deltec 851 running alongside the 9440 and with 24 hours the Deltec has pulled out twice as much, and twice as smelly gunk.

Any more ideas before I drop kick this thing out the window? Thanks.

 

[rvitko]

I would contact Tunze UK. I am sure they will take care of you, it is difficult from here as there are enough differences between the 50Hz and 60hz models that an issue could be unique to one or the other.

 

[ROCHESTERREEFER]

hi roger, i'm back with a solution to the problem ,i know it's been a while . as you see in the the very first post i sent you.a friend has a 9440. i recently brought him mine so he could compare and see why mine is not working properly. he found the needle wheels to be different . his are all the same length where the ones i have are taller in the center and become shorter as they go away from the center. so he took my pumps and installed his needle wheel impellers and now it works. no more water coming out of the over flo and skimmer cup does not fill with water any more. so i'm going to ask you to exchange these if you can.and i'm hoping that this info will help others as well. please let me know...walt

 

[rvitko]

That makes sense, early on we had 3 needle wheels, US 9410, European 9410, European 9420. We initially used the European 9410 in the US 9420, since a US pump does 36000rpm due to the 60Hz and a Euro one does 3000rpm at 50Hz, we felt it would be comparable, it wasn't quite and this resulted in underperforming 9420's and 9460's. We then used the Euro 9420 needlewheel for a very brief time which resulted in a big overperformance, this was temporary until a US 9420 needlewheel could be made which is what you have. I didn't know any of these Euro 9420 needlewheels were still out there, we made about ten pumps like this over just a couple weeks. Can you PM me the address? Sorry I didn't think of this.

 

[Jacob D]

I just posted my "saga" with the 9440 which contains it's complete history, talks about overflow issues, and has a video with a quick look at the solution I came up with. It could be that I've using the Euro needlewheels.

Anyway here's a link to my story.


This is an older post where I compared the two needlewheels that I have:

 

[rvitko]

The 9440 is very powerful for its size and very finicky as a result. The factory recommendation is that it be run a 9420 when first installed and then upgraded to a 9440 after most of the organics have been removed 4-6 weeks later to avoid the foaming over, we did have a lot of changes on the US models as Jacob's blog documents so the technical issues have been solved, but it is still a very strong and "reactive" skimmer and it will respond overzealously to water high in organics.