DIY "Stream" Style Pump
- Thread starter thunt
- Start date
ficklefins
New member
Not a pro on these mods, but I do think that a prop designed to push water is different then those designed to push air.
In other words: I don't think that a fan propeller for computers, or fan boats, have the same shape that a water moving propeller has. In the DC area I have been to 5 different hobby stores, none of which have RC boat propellers. I was going to stick with Titanium rods but now there is a lot of talk about stainless steal. Will stainless steal hold up in a saltwater tank?
Does anyone know what the rods in a Maxi-jet are made of?
In other words: I don't think that a fan propeller for computers, or fan boats, have the same shape that a water moving propeller has. In the DC area I have been to 5 different hobby stores, none of which have RC boat propellers. I was going to stick with Titanium rods but now there is a lot of talk about stainless steal. Will stainless steal hold up in a saltwater tank?
Does anyone know what the rods in a Maxi-jet are made of?
forsaken541
New member
Has anyone tried this with a larger pump like a Mag 3. I was thinking of making a fake rock to hide it in and giving the Mag3 a shot.
Erik
Erik
StupidsReef
Premium Member
Very interesting indeed! I have found that my local lowes store carries and sells pond pumps fairly cheap. As these are pumps that run not stop and they plug right in I'm thinking about trying to mod one of these for my tank.
Man I LOVE this site!!!
Man I LOVE this site!!!
Tatoo,
Be careful with the pond pumps, they were initially used for this type of pump but they had serious problems due to not being totally compatible with salt water. Do a search for reeftec
also try this:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/june2002/review.htm
Be careful with the pond pumps, they were initially used for this type of pump but they had serious problems due to not being totally compatible with salt water. Do a search for reeftec
also try this:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/june2002/review.htm
LiteEmUpGood
Member
Where are the "official" build plans to make the mod to a maxijet? As I am reading this thread the design keeps changing and I am getting lost in all the info. So if I am going to try this which one should I build?
Versus
New member
Well how I designed mine which i do not use because they make a considerable amount of noise in the water we dont hear. and i believe they stress fish out.
I will guide you through it though on how i did mine, YOU HAVE TO use the mj1200 magnet though . mj 900 and 1200 have no differences besides the way the internal probe and magnet is designed . just the outside is marked different. Your prop will have a "white" wheel instead of the black.
Materials you will need according to my lay out.
mj1200
mj1200 magnet , pull the end caps off the rod (can be diffacult ) remove the shaft AHAHAH SHAFT GET IT GUYS? GIGGLE SNORT omg im funny. And throw the prop in the trash ( white wheel )
Ok here is the 1 second mspaint plans =/ im at work and dont have photoshop sorry.
Red lines are CUTS.
( the only reason yellow is in the first picture is so you know to contain the "tabs" and not cut them off when you cut the intake and out the outtake holes off. )
Now goto the picture on the bottom , the teal/gray stripe is the magnet , cut off the first little piece not the next smaller section below that . The gold line is going to be the main shaft the blue // are the end caps ( red with black rubber gromets, i suggest you use super glue gel for all of this ) This is the 3/32 shaft people are talking about , I did not have access to titanium rods locally of this size . So i just used a alum 3/32 rod ( hobby shops tend to have hollow version's if you use this cut carefully as it warps )
The brown piece is a thicker tube of carbon (hollow) I believe it is around .176. 8 dollars 3ft length. i used a few inches. But i have a remote control heli and boat i can use it for. ( The part of the magnet you cut off ( plastic piece ) there is another tab below that . I had drilled it out a little bigger so i could glue the outer shaft inside of this.
The purple obviously is the prop I tried to get as close to 3/16th as possible since that was the inside of my props dia ( the most common size of plastic props ) The carbon shaft should be close to this size also but it is measured differently so I just compared the 3/16th alum hollow rod they had next to the hollow carbon rod .
Your 3/32 ( titanium hopefully ) rod should slide through this with A VERY VERY VERY little resistance , it should be as close to a perfect fit with 0 friction as possible.
Now going to the top right.
I used a fitting of pvc i had left over , I suggest you buy this part according to size of your prop . I got the male threaded because once I cut this off it gave me more space to glue it to the mj1200 intake / out take part ( i sanded it smooth \ hence this is why gel super glue comes in handly ) ( drill holes close to the bottom , right before the "hex\wrench" part of the PVC fitting , or just put em all over its up to you, this is jus thow i did mine. )
The most important part though is that orange bar , I used a thick piece of scrap acrylic i had laying around ( any piece of THICK plastic will work also ) Make the bar and drill a hole in it but not all the way through , just enough to fit the stopper ( red with black rubbery thing that goes on the ends of the shaft ) into it , Center it perfectly and glue it , if you dont the thing will shake all around and it is impossible todo this mod without that restrainer in place.
The magnet will fit through the original maxi jet intake hole and the one through the piece of PVC this gives easy acess. Remember the piece the prop is glued to the carbon , the main shaft ( 3/32 ) is fair close to free spinning if not fully.
Now that you are done , I am sure you wish you would of just worked the few extra hours and bought a tunze.
Good luck , improvise and use whatever tubing or way to connect it you want . just remember the orange piece in some form and to have the inner shaft free and the outer glued still.
I am going to break into melev's and eat casper now.
-Brian
I will guide you through it though on how i did mine, YOU HAVE TO use the mj1200 magnet though . mj 900 and 1200 have no differences besides the way the internal probe and magnet is designed . just the outside is marked different. Your prop will have a "white" wheel instead of the black.
Materials you will need according to my lay out.
mj1200
mj1200 magnet , pull the end caps off the rod (can be diffacult ) remove the shaft AHAHAH SHAFT GET IT GUYS? GIGGLE SNORT omg im funny. And throw the prop in the trash ( white wheel )
Ok here is the 1 second mspaint plans =/ im at work and dont have photoshop sorry.
Red lines are CUTS.
( the only reason yellow is in the first picture is so you know to contain the "tabs" and not cut them off when you cut the intake and out the outtake holes off. )
Now goto the picture on the bottom , the teal/gray stripe is the magnet , cut off the first little piece not the next smaller section below that . The gold line is going to be the main shaft the blue // are the end caps ( red with black rubber gromets, i suggest you use super glue gel for all of this ) This is the 3/32 shaft people are talking about , I did not have access to titanium rods locally of this size . So i just used a alum 3/32 rod ( hobby shops tend to have hollow version's if you use this cut carefully as it warps )
The brown piece is a thicker tube of carbon (hollow) I believe it is around .176. 8 dollars 3ft length. i used a few inches. But i have a remote control heli and boat i can use it for. ( The part of the magnet you cut off ( plastic piece ) there is another tab below that . I had drilled it out a little bigger so i could glue the outer shaft inside of this.
The purple obviously is the prop I tried to get as close to 3/16th as possible since that was the inside of my props dia ( the most common size of plastic props ) The carbon shaft should be close to this size also but it is measured differently so I just compared the 3/16th alum hollow rod they had next to the hollow carbon rod .
Your 3/32 ( titanium hopefully ) rod should slide through this with A VERY VERY VERY little resistance , it should be as close to a perfect fit with 0 friction as possible.
Now going to the top right.
I used a fitting of pvc i had left over , I suggest you buy this part according to size of your prop . I got the male threaded because once I cut this off it gave me more space to glue it to the mj1200 intake / out take part ( i sanded it smooth \ hence this is why gel super glue comes in handly ) ( drill holes close to the bottom , right before the "hex\wrench" part of the PVC fitting , or just put em all over its up to you, this is jus thow i did mine. )
The most important part though is that orange bar , I used a thick piece of scrap acrylic i had laying around ( any piece of THICK plastic will work also ) Make the bar and drill a hole in it but not all the way through , just enough to fit the stopper ( red with black rubbery thing that goes on the ends of the shaft ) into it , Center it perfectly and glue it , if you dont the thing will shake all around and it is impossible todo this mod without that restrainer in place.
The magnet will fit through the original maxi jet intake hole and the one through the piece of PVC this gives easy acess. Remember the piece the prop is glued to the carbon , the main shaft ( 3/32 ) is fair close to free spinning if not fully.
Now that you are done , I am sure you wish you would of just worked the few extra hours and bought a tunze.
Good luck , improvise and use whatever tubing or way to connect it you want . just remember the orange piece in some form and to have the inner shaft free and the outer glued still.
I am going to break into melev's and eat casper now.
-Brian
I agree that the modifications can make quite a bit of noise but I think that most of the noise comes from 1. The center shaft being offcentered, and 2. The center shaft not being tight in the end caps. If you can fix those two problems I think it cuts down on the noise considerably, but you wont ever get rid of all the noise. If you stick your ear up to the tank while you have the regular maxi-jet running it makes a ton of noise as well, so I doubt that the extra noise level from the modification will have a huge effect on your fish.
2nd, do NOT use aluminum for the center shaft. It will corrode in salt water and will be bad for your tank. If you cannot get titanium then go to a welding shop and get a 316 stainless steel rod..
3rd, There have been numerous posts on this thread about how to do the modification without ruining the origional maxi-jet setup. I would recommend using one of those mod designs for the simple reason that if your mod isn't to your liking or stops working then you can go back and use it like normal.
2nd, do NOT use aluminum for the center shaft. It will corrode in salt water and will be bad for your tank. If you cannot get titanium then go to a welding shop and get a 316 stainless steel rod..
3rd, There have been numerous posts on this thread about how to do the modification without ruining the origional maxi-jet setup. I would recommend using one of those mod designs for the simple reason that if your mod isn't to your liking or stops working then you can go back and use it like normal.
Lord Of the Ric
In Memoriam
Nice
Versus
New member
kevin_mic said:
ya thats just what i used , i did it on a sat and no welding shops were open. Its not like i used it very long anyway . my fish were pooping them selves from the noise. i really only posted so he could get an idea of what is needed , since no one really points out the inner shaft is free spinning and the top needs to be "holstered".
anyone want about 4 maxijet cores? heh.
I just made a nice mod for someone that I ran on a wavemaker for 12 hours with no problems besides a noisy start up every so often (from starting in reverse then hitting a stop pin to change direction).
This person plans on running it with a wavemaker, so I'll post when I find out how it holds up. IMO, to get these to start everytime, you have to use a MJ1200 and keep the prop just under 1.5" dia.
The Maxijets themselves are virtually bulletproof IMO. I'm still running ones that are coming up on 8 years old, with only about an annual cleaning.
This person plans on running it with a wavemaker, so I'll post when I find out how it holds up. IMO, to get these to start everytime, you have to use a MJ1200 and keep the prop just under 1.5" dia.
The Maxijets themselves are virtually bulletproof IMO. I'm still running ones that are coming up on 8 years old, with only about an annual cleaning.
I ran one on a wave timer for about 2-3 months or so. It evetually stopped working because the propellar portion came loose. Otherwise it worked fairly well. The main downside would be the noise of it starting all the time, and it may cause more wear and tear from the magnetic cylindar popping in and out all of the time.
Ya know.. I did this mod on my MJ1200 and it was WAY too much flow for my puny 55g tank. Even on an old 175gph powerhead I had lying around, this mod STILL puts out way too much. I don't think my LPS corals are gonna like this. The SPS seemed fine though.
Any suggestions?
D.
Any suggestions?
D.
Mr Bojangles
New member
so what is the prefered method to hold the rod........ acrylic glues to the cap or a cap drilled with slots
