I do it less often than I should, but every few months. I feed pretty heavily, so I get quite a bit of algae on the outside of the wet sides. Cleaning is easy. Pop them off the glass, scrub them under running water, take the guard off and clean the prop, then put them back in. The only part that can be a little annoying is the chatter that comes from imperfect alignment of the wet and dry sides. It's not hard to get them back into alignment, just a nuisance if you miss the first time.
Tunze is another very reliable, wide flow pump. You'll still have cables in the water, which makes cleaning more like cleaning Koralias, but they're in the same class as the Vortech pumps. People will argue over them like Chevy vs Ford, all with valid points, but you're really just shopping for your favorite flavor of pump at that level.
