Tunze 6214 advice?

[nate.hobart.1]

Hi folks,
I'm kind of at my wits end with my new tunze 6214 wavebox. I've had it running in my tank for about two weeks-

When I received it the pump in the unit was not seated in the box and actually in pieces, I put it back together and went thru the installation instructions. Upon firing it up it was so loud I immediately turned it off and pulled it all out and reassembled it. It is still buzzing so loud I can hear it across the house. I've tried changing its placement, and height in the tank- basically the lid to the unit is rattling so hard on the case I want to remove it- or glue it open. The box shakes so much that if I place it in a corner it buzzes the entire tank. I've pulled the pump out since and it seems properly assembled- no misaligned pieces or errant parts.

What's more is that I can't really get much of a wave out of it. Playing with the controller - at its best I'm getting maybe a centimeter of surface wave. Certainly not what I was told to expect.

For reference I'm using it in a 4ft long 150 gallon reef.

 

[rvitko]

Regarding the pump being disassembled on arrival, this is very common, it is actually probably the norm. We have thought of ways to address it but none are satisfactory as any additional packaging would still require disassembly to remove and then reassembly.

On a 4ft long tank, the most wave you can expect will be 1/2-3/4", for that matter the 6208 would provide almost the same wave on a tank this size, on short tanks the wave is short as their is not enough distance to build a greater wave. 6ft tanks see bigger waves. I am not sure who had advised that the wave would be bigger, 1cm is roughly 1/2" and that is not far off, it will be on the shorter end of the range with a corner overflow or on a taller tank. I suspect some fine tuning using the plus and minus buttons as well as working with depth of submersion can result in some small increases.

Regarding the buzzing noise. I would test the pump stand alone, we need to determine if the pump itself is buzzing or the box is the source, the box should have no hard surface contact to the tank trim or frame for example. The only moving part is the propeller in the pump, this could be out of balance or damaged, or the box itself maybe transmitting vibration if it is touching the glass or trim directly.

 

[nate.hobart.1]

Thanks for the quick response! [emoji3]

The wave isn't really my biggest concern - tho at my local LFS they must have exaggerated the amount. I still get a good amount of flow from it. My tank is fairly tall.

As for the buzz- I don't have any hard surface contact with the tank walls. I tried bracing the box in a corner of the tank and that just made it much worse. I have to head off to work, but when I get home I'll pull the pump from the box and see what happens with it running suspended in the tank. I feel like it's a loose seem or crack or something in the box itself.

 

[rvitko]

Make sure the front cover of the pump is on correctly, the gap should be even if it is. As for the box, the most important thing is that the sponge is under the pump. The front and back half of the box click together at 3 points on each side. The top lid engages on a couple tabs that hold it down.

 

[nate.hobart.1]

It is the lid. If the lid is supposed to have tabs to hold it down/closed it does not. The opposing indents in the box are present but the lid is the cause of the noise. It's gotten worse now and on top of the buzzing it's also clicking as the lid pops open and closed. Am I missing something? I'm really bummed I purchased this thing. The unit is so loud!

 

[rvitko]

Can you email me a photo of the issue so we can get this resolved?

Tunze at sbcglobal dot net

 

[nate.hobart.1]

Sure

 

[nate.hobart.1]

Sent a picture, then I just sent a video in an attempt to illustrate the noise. The video may be too large a file for email, I'm not sure.