diy mag drive mods, extreme flow?

N

noobtothereef

New member
Im trying to find diy threads or info on mag drive propeller mods, ive heard of huge flow numbers coming from these, i would like more information on this, im shooting for 50,000gph in a 1000g reef but with mp60's that would be $4500.......... maybe a couple of trolling motors lol
 
If I had a 1000g+ tank, I would seriously consider looking into trolling motors actually. It makes perfect sense to me.
 
widmer said:
If I had a 1000g+ tank, I would seriously consider looking into trolling motors actually. It makes perfect sense to me.
Click to expand...

i know, they are dc so controlling them would be easy, huge output as well, a little on the large side though but soooooo cheap......

im really considering a slew of k4's with the sure flow mod, i have no idea what the gph rating is with the mod though, the maxi jet claims 2200gph, i would think the k4 would be higher than that but the maxijet has a larger magnet than the k4....hmmm
 
I just don't see what the attachment to having massively over-priced thru the glass mag-drive propellers do for you.

Suggestion.

Purchase the very smallest saltwater trolling motor you can find. Get one for a canoe or 6ft 'deck boat' or something else similar.
Build a nice little anti-fish dicing shroud for it. Salt water motors generally come with a non-metallic shaft. Disassemble it and cut the shaft down to a foot, or whatever you want and reassemble it.

Run it with a battery eliminator. The thing would run for years. You'd likely want to run it very slowly.

With a single shaft-from-above you can mount it anywhere and at angles, which you can't do with the magdrive types.

You can get them new for around $100.

Epay? Probably a lot less.
 
as an avid fisherman i will tell you that it is only a matter of time before the trolling motors seals will wear out exposing your aquarium water to the copper and grease inside the motor housing. I have owned about 5 trolling motors over the last 10-15 years and EVERY single one has failed because the bearing behind the propeller wore allowing the shaft to destroy the rubber seal allowing water into the motor housing. I think a better option would be a pnewmatic powered mixing propeller like the use in chemical plants or a food factory. its a ss drive shaft with a prop driven by a air motor.
 
Wow that's a serious pump. What does it cost? More than my car probably...

BTW seeing that tank has given me a new goal in life. Never seen one wide enough where there's a beech with dry sand at the one end and the water's a few feet deep at the other end.
 
username in use said:
If you are really shooting for 50,000gph, then you want the hydro wizard. http://************.com/2010/08/09/...-rhei-is-a-carbon-fiber-reinforced-water-jet/

But be careful what you ask for, I saw this thing put a 6" wave in a 20,000g reef. It was about 3 ft down and put a serious chop on the surface of a 30ft by 15ft tank.
Click to expand...

ive seen that pump where they had it in sanjay's tank for size comparison to an mp40, waaaaaaaaaay out of my price range lol

im contemplating 18-koralia 4's with the propeller mod, found a few different kits but one advertises 2500gph on a maxi jet and can only assume that the k4 will push that number even higher. 6 of them will be on the back wall of the tank(peninsula) directed towards the other end and the others around the parameter and 4 down the center all on a "swirler stein" rotating all of them back and fourth driven from 1 6rpm gearhead motor linked together with rods from one sirler stein to the next.

I figured i can hit the 50,000gph mark easily for about $1000 and for another $150 i can swirler stein all of the powerheads bu the 6 on the back wall, and also they only pull 12 watts of current each, 216 watts total, if a pump goes bad i will have a shelf full of them, im even considering using the maxijets instead with the prop mod. If i went my original plan of a closed loop the cost would be somewhere in the $6-7000 range and have about a 2000 watt current draw, i would rather sit on a ladder next to the tank with an oar before i spent that kind of money and operating costs.... with running mp40's or 60's the innitial cost would be huge, if i had unlimited money like some i would have a slew of mp40's, mp60's, with a combination of closed loops running oceans motions 4 ways on revolutions and tunze wavemakers.........maybe even a pair of those wizards like mentioned above

I just cant wrap my head around spending $6-8000 on flow, i guess im not a catalog and credit card type of guy and more diy. I think a combination of the swirler steiner and the modded powerheads i will have plenty of random flow, not too mention the added 10,000gph from the 2 reeflo return pumps. I was contemplating a couple of large surge devices but then adding a couple high wattage pumps to the system would kind of defeat the purpose of saving energy

swirler steiner kind of like this but close as possible to the tank surface and also built with much higher quality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhfQKfhD6E0
 
Last edited:
noobtothereef said:
Im trying to find diy threads or info on mag drive propeller mods, ive heard of huge flow numbers coming from these, i would like more information on this, im shooting for 50,000gph in a 1000g reef but with mp60's that would be $4500.......... maybe a couple of trolling motors lol
Click to expand...

I don't think you are going to find much about what you are wanting to try to do with a mag pump. It requires a custom impeller (modified shaft mostly) and a custom impeller housing. Same thing they did with the Maxi-jet mods. Longer shaft to get the propeller away from the pump motor so that it can pull more water into the propeller and then a custom volute to hold it all in place. When you look at the power consumption on mag pumps and compare it to other pumps that put out the same gph, people get away from the mag pumps because of it. High energy usage on them.

Second issue is the flow pattern. Assume you could mod a Mag36 and get the 50,000 gph you want (I have no idea, just using it as a reference). If you put that single pump in the tank your ability to control the flow pattern in the tank is gone. You point the pump in one direction and get the flow you get. About the same as putting a MJ400 in a 10 gallon tank. No options at all. With multiple pumps you gain the ability to change the flow patterns to account for the rock work, the tank shape, etc.. If you move something and need to change the flow pattern, with multiple pumps thats simple. With a single pump providing true laminar flow that isn't.

I have two mag18 pumps but they are packed up. Hopefully moving back to Florida in Jan and can get things unpacked and start tinkering again and will look into it as I love overkill projects :) But it still goes back to how easy it is going to be to modify the impeller and how easy it will be to make a custom housing for it all.

Look forward to seeing what anybody comes up with for pump mods though :)
 
First, a bank of koralias, modded or not, are not going to move the water in the same way that one large powerhead will. All those little streams are going to get mixed up and weakened within a couple feet and really won't have much power by they time they get to where you really need the flow. Thats why you dont see people using 3 mp10's in a 240g tank, or 10 koralia nano's in a 350g tank even though it would be 4500gph. You need to seriously consider on a 1000g tank, getting items that are sized for a 1000g tank. Its more than just getting to a number, there are a lot of physics to overcome at that size and that amount of water.

A surge system doesnt require a high wattage pump at all. You need a pump that can fill your surge reservoir every 3 minutes or so. If your surge is 20-30 gallons, thats a pretty slow pump. Then your surge will automatically dump the reservoir.

Im also starting to wonder if you have given any real thought to the long term costs of a tank this size considering how reluctant you are to spend a few thousand dollars on flow. Is this tank a reef? If so, what are you lighting it with and do you realize how much wattage that is going to use?
 
This is the only reference to the mag 18 prop mods I could find.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1252390&highlight=mag+a+prop+mods&page=2
The hydro wizard mentioned above is releasing a medium version in late Jan..
12,000 GPH @ 80 watts!!!! DC as well. Cost AROUND $800. I am all about DIY but at that wattage draw for 12,000 GPH I''m not sure I can compete with it. I'm thinking one of these mounted on a rotating device would be pretty wild. I will have a fake wall in my tank to accommodate it . It will also be pretty much hidden except the outlet portion extending past the wall. I was told by the company rep that it will be about the size of a large beer can.
 
I would go with the Turbelle® masterstream 6515
for aquariums over 20,000 litres (5,283.4 USgal.), Flow rate: 50,000 to 150,000 l/h (13,208 to 39,625.8 USgal./h), Maximum flow velocity: 3.7 m/s (145.6 in./sec.), Energy consumption: 280 W - 24V, Power supply unit: 100 – 240 V / 50 – 60 Hz – 24 VDC, Cable length: 10 m (393.6 in.), Dimensions: L 340 x W 165 x H 227 mm (L 13.4 x W 6.5 x H 8.9 in.), Ejection: diam. 125 mm (4.9 in.), Attachment to pipe, diam. 32 mm (1.25 in.), Supplied with Multicontroller 7096.
 
shifty51008 said:
I would go with the Turbelle® masterstream 6515
for aquariums over 20,000 litres (5,283.4 USgal.), Flow rate: 50,000 to 150,000 l/h (13,208 to 39,625.8 USgal./h), Maximum flow velocity: 3.7 m/s (145.6 in./sec.), Energy consumption: 280 W - 24V, Power supply unit: 100 "“ 240 V / 50 "“ 60 Hz "“ 24 VDC, Cable length: 10 m (393.6 in.), Dimensions: L 340 x W 165 x H 227 mm (L 13.4 x W 6.5 x H 8.9 in.), Ejection: diam. 125 mm (4.9 in.), Attachment to pipe, diam. 32 mm (1.25 in.), Supplied with Multicontroller 7096.
Click to expand...

$3752.00 as well!!
 
What if you went crazy mad DIY, bought some miscellaneous appliance for the electric motor (maybe a blender? Then you could control the speed...), used an acrylic rod to transfer the torque down into the tank, where it then interfaces with a plastic gear to turn a prop? It could be like a $100-200 project.
 
widmer said:
What if you went crazy mad DIY, bought some miscellaneous appliance for the electric motor (maybe a blender? Then you could control the speed...), used an acrylic rod to transfer the torque down into the tank, where it then interfaces with a plastic gear to turn a prop? It could be like a $100-200 project.
Click to expand...

Holy electric bill Batman. That's some serious amp draw. Or how bout a shop vac on a timer for surge? That would be TimTaylorific. Imagine the the sound! And the dimming lights!
Awesome.
 
Original Fin it's funny to crap on ideas especially when they go out on a limb :thumbsup:

Truthfully though, it's a fun idea to consider. As far as how much electricity it would draw, this is one of those unfortunate circumstances where laws of thermodynamics regretfully apply; you can't get tens of thousands of gph without spending the watts. Meanwhile, with the right system to transfer the torque, I would imagine that there wouldn't be much loss in efficiency as compared to having the prop theoretically coming right off of the motor.
 
grouper therapy said:
$3752.00 as well!!
Click to expand...

Yean no kidding, i dont know anybody that could afford 1 of those pumps, thats for commercial and zoo applications, and i also dont see any distributor even stocking those and would have to be special ordered, i highly doubt you will ever see anybody here owning one, maybe 1 or 2 whales...... even with a 6 figure income that kind of spending would be really hard to justify, and also considering im posting in the DIY forum trying to find cheap flow and people say "hey i would buy this $10k powerhead", yeah right id like to see this guy buy that $3800 tunze.....

Im shooting for low current draw and cheap inital investments, im looking at the long term and designing a sytem for low cost and getting the same job done as these huge builds that have bottomless pockets, and i dont ant to hear anything about dont plan on spending "x" amount of money because it ill be "x" amount more... i allready know this, at about $7k in my 120 ive been around the block, thats hy im doing alot more research this time around.....
 
noobtothereef said:
Yean no kidding, i dont know anybody that could afford 1 of those pumps, thats for commercial and zoo applications, and i also dont see any distributor even stocking those and would have to be special ordered, i highly doubt you will ever see anybody here owning one, maybe 1 or 2 whales...... even with a 6 figure income that kind of spending would be really hard to justify, and also considering im posting in the DIY forum trying to find cheap flow and people say "hey i would buy this $10k powerhead", yeah right id like to see this guy buy that $3800 tunze.....

Im shooting for low current draw and cheap inital investments, im looking at the long term and designing a sytem for low cost and getting the same job done as these huge builds that have bottomless pockets, and i dont ant to hear anything about dont plan on spending "x" amount of money because it ill be "x" amount more... i allready know this, at about $7k in my 120 ive been around the block, thats hy im doing alot more research this time around.....
Click to expand...

I know what you are talking about. At the local fish club here in Atlanta there were a couple of members that insisted on posting in the DIY forum any and all reasons not to DIY and never,ever offered any constructive dialogue. They did not understand most of the concepts and ideas so they just threw in a bunch of negative comments in an attempt to contribute I suppose. I started an anti diy thread for them .never heard back.lol Then there is the do you realize how much this is going to cost comment when you are searching for less expensive alternatives. YES I do that is why I am looking for other alternatives. I would venture to say that most of the equipment/hardware advancements in the hobby were originally started by DIY hobbyist.

All that said I am looking into possibly prop modding a laguna pump.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

V
DIY alternative to AZNO3?
Replies
5
Views
3K
vahegan
V
Clownfishfan
Aaron's 125g Reef
Replies
1
Views
4K
Clownfishfan
Clownfishfan
P
Maxspect Gyre 300 series and ICV6 review
Replies
7
Views
5K
pisanoal
P
A
Help with DIY LED unit[60, 3-5W LEDs]
Replies
2
Views
812
oreo57
oreo57
M
75 gallon reef advice
Replies
6
Views
626
JTL
JTL
Back
Top