MAXIJET Powerheads IMPORTANT

alextheromanian

New member
:D if you clicked on this you're either:

- the owner of one...two or more
- thinking of being the owner of one or two or more
- maybe...had one or...two or...you get the picture.


Before i start i want to state that im not that old to the hobby and im ALWAYS on a tight budget and try to save every chance i get.


first of all this is not a post im typing up to upset anyone so if i do my apologies im ONLY trying to save those of you who have not gone to the UNFORTUNATE experience i have...yet.:cool:

i have went froma 14 gal to a 29 to a 75 all saltwater but this may interest you if you have freshwater aswell.


i own 3 of the 1200 maxijet powerheads and aftter a while of being in my tank i realised they werent moving as much water as i wanted them too and they forced to much in one spot instead of gently moving alot all at once.

so i spend days and days researching on the upgrades avalable like the magnet holders and the 1200gph upgrade that im sure most of you heard about.

some of these upgrades cost all togheder more than i ended up paying for the powerhead itself and i had hoped that performance wise it would make them outperform VERY expensive powerheads.


i found a few people saying they were too strong moved to much water a bit noisy at firts but in time turned out great.

other said they love them and they are amazing.

well let me tell you what. i dont know if its paranoia kicking in but im STARTING to think these small companies that make these ugrades leave "USER" feed back on websites for their won products stating they are great amazing and the whole back of cookies.


why? maybe to increase sales? at a free cost? what better commercial to a product than a belivable happy customer telling others he bit the bullet and ended up being very happy just UPGRADING what he already had. :confused: :( :mad: :mad2:

<b> i have 3! maxijets!</b> all got upgrades...and guess what. if i got one bad upgrade kid id say MAYBE! but all 3 <B>SUCKED</B>

and now your wondering...why?

well in all the ways you can imagine.

<u><b>MAGNET</u></b>

too big...too bulky
strong...yes but i belive a bit smaller if not thinner would have been ok.

<u><b>IMPELLER</u></b>

this felt like cheap CHEAP plastic. it comes with two.

the white one is bigger...it will move 1200gph i belive
this created tornadoes even when blowing up.

pointed down acrosst the tank it stured up sand

pointed at the wall...it removed all the sand all the way to the bottom of the substrate causing ...UGLYNES and MESS

the smaller impeller is black and will move 800GPH this is still to strong creating the same problems the bigger impeller.

BOTH impellers are loud...this is stated to be normal...at FIRST and over time the magnets would war down and so would the impeller a bit and they would be quiet.

i had them running for a month and i must tell you i could hear them trough the wall in the LIVING ROOM FROM MY BEDROOM!

FISH didnt like it and always hid out of the current.i even had one of the rocks fall 2 days later after being slowly pushed over on a snail but it survived :rolleyes:


<u><b>THE IMPELLER HOUSING</u></b>

another iece of plastic...cheap at that may i add it felt like it was made in someones garage with a plastic mold kit.


First off...these were downsized from bein any bigger because added to the MJ it almost doubles it in size.

if it was bigger it would have probably been better than the small one because <B>IT WOULDNT SUCK MY FISH SHRIMP AND SNAILS IN!</B>

the housing has slits around it sadly not big enough or numerous enough to reduce the SUCTION like on a koralia where if you feel around it will not suck anything but debris maybe.


either way...as a result to these ugrades i lost:

-my fav shrimp that survived being moved into 3 diff tanks (first saltwater buy)

-6 blue ghrmises

-1 royal ghrama

-1 snail


DO NOT make the same mistake i did.

i tried to fix these by wrapping a piece of nylon stocking thing around the housing so that nothing else gets sucked in...well the nylong got cloged with algae and even clean it made the upgrade useless...and uglier.

DO NOT BUY THE UPGRADES...they arent worth it. buy a used or new powerhead ...i personally got 2 koralia 3 and im hapy with them...they havent killed anything in 4 months and move water in a healthy way and amount the fish love being out of the rocks too.


IN ANY CASE im not affiliated with koralia...i DONt HAVE SOMEHTING AGAINST THE maxiJETS THEMSELVES i just despise the MJ upgrades.

they are BIG BULKY LOUD TOO STRONG and DANGEROUS.

and i hope this long read will shed some light on this issue.

THIS is the reason why i joined this fourum...i saw someone asking if they should buy them or not.

DONT!

thats all i will say about MY exerince with these piece of plastic that now sit useless in a bag in my stand collecting dust.

others may have been so fortunate...but then again i have yet to see pictures of these peoples setups.

i posted this here because i know if i would post it as a review it will only get covered with

"
*****
i love it it its great its the best ever my fish ar happy

yes i would recomend it to all my friends "

______________________________________________

sorry about the long read. i had alot to say about this and i figured if you dont hear it in detail it would just sound like another review of it youd forget about in a few days.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12910278#post12910278 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jandree22
wow... that's quite the rant :)


trying to save smeone from spending 40$ n more on garbage thats all
 
it's appreciated. I'm just sorry to hear you had so much bad luck with them. I'm really interested now to hear if others chime in and say they've had good experiences with the kit.

FWIW I've also read plenty of bad reviews with the Koralia's. So it's just a crapshoot based on reviews I guess.
 
So, what I'm reading is

A) you don't like that the pieces are plastic
B) it was too strong

A healthy fish will not get sucked into a powerhead. If your fish were stuck against it, they were already sick/weak.

If it blew over your rockwork/stirred up sand, reposition the flow. Plus, if a powerhead can blow over your rockwork, it was gonna fall.

I also think they would use smaller magnets if they felt they could. No company willingly spends more $ on parts than necessary.


I am sorry you have had trouble with them. I found them to work quite well.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12910388#post12910388 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kmf507
So, what I'm reading is

A) you don't like that the pieces are plastic
B) it was too strong

A healthy fish will not get sucked into a powerhead. If your fish were stuck against it, they were already sick/weak.

If it blew over your rockwork/stirred up sand, reposition the flow. Plus, if a powerhead can blow over your rockwork, it was gonna fall.

I also think they would use smaller magnets if they felt they could. No company willingly spends more $ on parts than necessary.


I am sorry you have had trouble with them. I found them to work quite well.



do you know how small chrmois fish are?

i threw them in and overnight they died....i dont think you should have a problem like that with a powerhead.


koralia didnt do it...

also i DID NOT SAY I DONT LIKE PLASTIC.
i said i dont like CHEAP FEELING AND LOOKING plastic.


koralia uses amaller round magnets with build in suction cups...those are thinner smaller more elgant.




good for you that they worked well in your tank however i dont really appreciate the tone you replied with.

i dont have sick or weak fish problems and i only stated my experince with these upgrades...true fact for fact...

if they killed and caused damage for me it might for others too.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12910592#post12910592 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bobt2
???? i have 3 of them and just ordered 2 more! for the price, their just fine


not loud?
at all?
 
I have two of the 1200's and they work well for what I use them for. I don't think I would try to modify one. I use one for mixing salt/kalk and the other one is running a small reactor in the sump. I have no complaints. Sometimes ,when I wanna do a water change, I will plug in a 50' piece of 1/2" polyflow tubing to one of them and pump water from the garage. That's quite a bit of head pressure to overcome for a $20 powerhead.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12910349#post12910349 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jandree22
it's appreciated. I'm just sorry to hear you had so much bad luck with them. I'm really interested now to hear if others chime in and say they've had good experiences with the kit.

FWIW I've also read plenty of bad reviews with the Koralia's. So it's just a crapshoot based on reviews I guess.


i actually found koralias...at the same price as the upgrades...actually cheaper


and i put those in and they look more elegant and not so big and bulky and they move twice the water without tornadoes noise or pressure in one spot.
 
I don't think anything you described is the upgrades fault? It did what is is suppose to do. Move a crap ton of water...1200gph from one PH would probably flip my tank over.
 
they made a little noise the first day, after that their quiet. i have 1 in a 30 and 1 in a 55. i,m now replacing the sieos in my 75 with these.
 
If they are too strong then downgrade to a smaller powerhead. You have 3600 GPH from all 3 of those powerheads in a 75 Gallon Tank... what exactly did you expect to happen (50x Flow lol):rolleyes:

The larger impeller is meant for maxi 1200's. The reason they are loud, chattering noise I assume, is b/c you are using the short impeller.

The magnets are large b/c they are made to fit a wide array of powerheads. Have you ever held a Seio and compared the weight to a maxijet?? That right there is the reason for the large magnets.

You complain the shrouds are plastic.... what exactly would you like them to be made out of? Tunze pumps are plastic too.

And if your animals are getting stuck on the pumps then you have problems elsewhere. My 6 Lines Wrasse swims circles around the housing all the time, and my snails and sea urchin are all over the housing of the pumps/impeller to get the algae on them.



others may have been so fortunate...but then again i have yet to see pictures of these peoples setups.

030.jpg

wels.jpg

meaty.jpg

clam.jpg


Included some close ups of my coral that seems to be doing pretty darn well with these pumps on the tank:spin3:

As per the noise issue.... the tank is about 6 FT from my Television in my living room. I have no noise issues.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12910700#post12910700 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by alextheromanian
good for you that they worked well in your tank however i dont really appreciate the tone you replied with.
I will say I don't think anyone was out of line with their 'tone'. Remember that you came and posted, guns a blazin', with conspiracy theories about corupt business practices from the MJ mod vendors. First of all this is unfounded unless you have proof, 2nd of all, you have to realize that with that kind of initial attitude, yeah you'll get some kick back with differing opinions. Also, the maxi jet prop mod was not developed as some snake-oil solution by a sleazy vendor... it was a DIY by hobbyist from the start that vendors streamlined and made available to those not so mechanically inclined.

I didn't say it earlier but I agree with others that it's not a 'fault' to have a pump blow sand around... that's just a flippin powerful pump. Perhaps too much for your setup and taste, but it's doing exactly what it was meant to... being modified to move a crap load of water.

The korilia may be more elegant, but it's also more $$$. I don't want to spend $80 for elegant pumps when I can spend $40 for more powerful ones.

Sorry to rant, but grow up. You came and posted pretty obivously aware that you were going to spark some strong opinions, and you're offended when they emerge. :rolleye1:

I appreciate your account, but the majority of your 'issues' are conspiracy theories, unfounded, or matter of personal opinion.
 
if they killed and caused damage for me it might for others too.

Healthy fish don't get stuck on power heads. That's all there is to it. Take a look at my set up you can see a margarita snail (about the same size as a small chromis) crawling right on the left pump shroud. I would bet the fish died or was weak, and got stuck to the powerhead.

As I said my little sixline does circles around the pump like a circus idiot all day lol. He's a little bigger than a chromis, but it is still a small fish.
 
Sorry you had such a bad experience with them, but I think you might have simply overdone it in our tank.

I use two modded Maxi-jets on a wave timer in my 90 and they work fantastic. I actually prefer them over the Koralias.

I'm glad they are made of simple light weight plastic. It's much safer in a reef tank than glass or metal and a lot easier to clean than carved stone.

If you are convinced there is a manufacturing problem that is making them not work correctly, you can and should contact the store you purchased them from or the manufacturer. Most will gladly exchange it for a new one. Few stores or companies can stay in business if they are making and selling faulty products. Not good for the reputation, either.
 
lol i could not even get my self to read all the posts but i must agree

i hate the mods and have had all three props break on me and they are loud soooo

that being said save your pennies and buy a tunze hehe :)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12910700#post12910700 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by alextheromanian
do you know how small chrmois fish are?

i threw them in and overnight they died....i dont think you should have a problem like that with a powerhead.


koralia didnt do it...

also i DID NOT SAY I DONT LIKE PLASTIC.
i said i dont like CHEAP FEELING AND LOOKING plastic.


koralia uses amaller round magnets with build in suction cups...those are thinner smaller more elgant.




good for you that they worked well in your tank however i dont really appreciate the tone you replied with.

i dont have sick or weak fish problems and i only stated my experince with these upgrades...true fact for fact...

if they killed and caused damage for me it might for others too.

Hard to get a "tone" from plain text. But....yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with my ability to describe a chromis. A healthy fish does not get sucked into a powerhead. Sorry you don't like the info.

Let's calm down a second and consider other possible explanations....Well, first your powerheads blew your sand all over your tank. How deep and old is your sandbed? Perhaps it kicked up a little bit too much and released gases. That WOULD weaken/kill a fish, that then MIGHT get stuck to a powerhead.

Okay, could there be anything else?
 
Back
Top