AquaC Remora S loud vibrations

[dismayed]

I've just turned on my new Remora S as of a few hours ago. It's very loud; there's a lot of vibration noise coming from the unit, being amplified by the back of my aquarium's glass. This is one of the new units with the sponge dampener pre installed inside the unit. I've been messing with the positioning of the unit as well as the dials on the back experimenting with various flush-ness of the unit to the back of the aquarium. Nothing seems to work. The pump is a brand new supreme classic mag 5. It is not touching the glass. Same noise with or without the optional surface skimmer box.

Any suggestions?

 

[kurt_n]

Try putting some of those little circular felt pads on the leveling "feet" between the skimmer and the back of the tank. That, and experimenting with how far away the output lip is from the frame of your tank, should help.

If that doesn't help, you might focus on the pump and see if it runs quiet when its off the skimmer. In my experience, those mag5 pumps are hard to keep quiet for long. I eventually replaced mine with a Sicce.

 

[dismayed]

It's strange. I shut off the thing the other night after reading your message, fully intending to do what you suggested. When I got back to it the following night, I turned it back on and it is pretty quiet now. I guess maybe whatever it was settled in.

You're right though the pump is pretty loud. All I really hear is the water movement now, but man is there a lot of it. It's quite a bit louder than my filtration. At least I don't want to flee the room now though.

Which Sicce did you get? Syncra 2.0 maybe?

 

[kurt_n]

Actually the Syncra 1.5. I replaced a Mag 3 that was stock. I got tired of futzing with that stupid pump and constantly replacing the impeller to get it to quiet down. What happens with them is the elastomer bushings on the ends of the impeller shaft shrink over time which causes the impeller to wobble in the housing... causing a noisy pump.

Sounds like you increased the standard pump to a Mag 5? That could be causing some of the noise issues as the flow rate is a bit more than the Mag 3.

Also... as I looked at my skimmer last night, I forgot that I also put those felt pads between the output lip of the skimmer and the top of the frame of the tank. So everywhere the skimmer makes contact with the tank, it's cushioned. That, the Sicce pump, and a DIY version of the newer foam "silencer" actually makes it a pretty quiet skimmer!

 

[dismayed]

This years Remora S line comes with either the Mag 3 or 5 as standard. Before I bought it I also thought the 5 seemed like overkill, but the tables that showed tank size and what pump I needed listed the 5. It was definitely overkill.

I also bought the optional surface skimmer box. Wish I'd forgone that as well.

I like the specs on the Syncra 1.5, I think I see one of those in my near future.

Do you by any chance remember how long it was before you really considered your skimmer broken-in?

 

[kurt_n]

Interesting about the pumps. I know that many folks put Mag 5s on them when the Mag 3s were the biggest pump you could get. Guess they decided to finally make that an option.

Yeah... I bought the surface skimmer box also! It got sold shortly after I tried to make *that* monster work! Might be OK in a big big tank, but mine is on a 46g! Plus, the attachment method is pretty cheesy.

I don't remember how long it took to break in. I don't remember it being more than a week. But then, I've always had it on a very lightly stocked 46g, so it never really pulls out a lot of skimmate.

Yes, the syncra1.5 is a tiny little pump for the gph it puts out. I tried a "Quiet One" brand pump before the syncra, and even though it was rated the same gph it didn't seem to produce as much skimmate. But the syncra was much smaller, much quieter, runs cooler (in my opinion), and puts out the same skimmate as the mag3 - without the maintenance headache. I'm surprised AquaC doesn't sell them as an option, but they're not cheap pumps, that's for sure.

 

[Reeferz412]

I used my remora as a paperweight for a while. Switched over to a warner marine then eshopps psk 100-H. Without the skimmer cup lid on, it is super loud, plus it isnt the best perfomer by any means.