How often do I clean my streams?
- Thread starter Diehl
- Start date
At 3 months I would take it apart and have a look, pay particular attention to the hole in the centor of the magnet and the part called the upper bearing in the manual, these parts are critical, the magnet rotates on the upper bearing and this has to be smooth and not stuck to the magnet. The center hole is a port that water is pumped through to levitate, lubricate and cool the magnet. 90% of reported failures/alarms come from these two problems. If it looks pretty good just run it in a bucket of 50/50 vinegar and water for a couple hours and do this every three months, every other time you should take them apart and inspect the pieces. If it looks kind of fouled up you may want to double check, KH, pH and Calcium levels. If they are high reduce them. The schedule is the same in these circumstance but you will want to be more thorough in your cleaning. Usually at a KH of about 10-12, Ca of 380-400 and pH of around 8.2, the pumps can run for 6-12 months without trouble. I know these vaues sound low to some but the ocean itself is 8KH, pH of 8.1-8.2 and Ca of 380ppm. The only thing I change from nature in my tanks is I keep a higher KH because of the limited buffering capacity in a small volume of water.
