WATCH OUT Something to know about Mag 12

[tynman]

I have had Mag drive in sump pumps since I have gotten into the hobby. I ran a mag 12 as my return from my sump. This is just to let you know what happened to me with the pump and the compay.

After about 2 to 3 years running a mainly SPS reef tank, seeing frags from 1/2 inch grow into fist size colonies things just started to go bad and fast. I had RTN and STN and SPS just turning into pretty white stone. I checked my water thinking there was something wrong with it. Everything was usual no big changes. I was lost and no one seemed to know what to think. So after restarting my SPS tank with all new frags, colonies, live rock and even sand. I didnt see anything good happening no kind of color or polyp extention. I had some encrusting at the base but nothing like I got 3 years ago.

So after about 6 months of looking at the tank and thinking about it I pulled the plug on the system and broke everything down. Well what I found was very disappointing, I pulled my Mag 12 return pump out of my sump and found rust around the screws and where you would take the inpeller out. (see picture) I never had a problem with the pump working. It was a strong pump.



Now I know why most of my SPS crapped out on me. The sad part is I dont have it in me to start all over again.

So I call Danner in NY and asked them what the story is with this and what they can do. Well I was told that 2 times a year isnt good enough to clean the pump, it should be done every 4 weeks.. (I dont know about anyone else here but my return pump was very hard to) Im out of warranty by a year or so. So she told me basiclly its my problem and I need to buy a new pump. I told her this wasnt something I could fix or replace like the impeller it was the body of the pump. They wouldnt do anything to help me but sell me a new pump.

So from my experience I just want to let everyone know about mostly the rusting problem and the companies care and help. I would be very careful with using there pumps... I will never use a Danner pump again...

Thanks for reading and beware and good luck.

 

[gchaney]

the only thing i use mag pumps for is mixxing my tank is completely ran by external pumps mostly to reduce heat transfer but there is this too.

 

[BfishLpond78]

Thanks for the info...I have a mag 9.5 right now...

Now you have me thinking...has anyone else experienced this?

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

 

[frnkynlop]

Yeah seen this in my mag 3. I few weeks ago I pulled it out to do maintenace and saw rust by the screws and impeller area. wasn't much, but it was there. I excuse my ignorance, but I thought is not a big deal because GFO is rust. Should I be worried.

 

[Runfrumu]

All screws on all mag-drive pumps get rust on them, all of mine do with no adverse effects. I've been running one off and on for 5 years like that.

They only problem I had with a mag-drive is one starting leaking voltage from where the plug goes into the pump in due to a break in the seal around the cord, it had a massive amount of rust there and it actually did mess up some of my colonies.

Now I fill all pumps with silicone around the cords.

 

[tynman]

the only thing i use mag pumps for is mixxing my tank is completely ran by external pumps mostly to reduce heat transfer but there is this too.

Yea I wish I had the room under my tank to do the external pump then I wouldnt need the chiller too. But I didnt have the room.

 

[tynman]

Yeah seen this in my mag 3. I few weeks ago I pulled it out to do maintenace and saw rust by the screws and impeller area. wasn't much, but it was there. I excuse my ignorance, but I thought is not a big deal because GFO is rust. Should I be worried.

I dont really know if GFO are the same thing as rust but then again I never looked into it. But then your tank is getting 2 times the rust from the GFO's and the pump rust. And Im going to say thats no good.

 

[tynman]

All screws on all mag-drive pumps get rust on them, all of mine do with no adverse effects. I've been running one off and on for 5 years like that.

They only problem I had with a mag-drive is one starting leaking voltage from where the plug goes into the pump in due to a break in the seal around the cord, it had a massive amount of rust there and it actually did mess up some of my colonies.

Now I fill all pumps with silicone around the cords.

Yea someone on a diffrent forum said that the rust off the pump wouldnt kill the SPS. But Im going to say it has everything to do with it.

 

[Elem7777]

GFO is just rust, and isn't harmful.

Have you actually set your tank back up and seen a difference minus the Mag 12? Honestly all I get from your story is that your Mag 12, despite a bit of rust, has been reliably working for years without issue and that someone at Danner did pull some bull out of their *** with the claim that you need to clean the pump every month, who does that? No one.

 

[tynman]

GFO is just rust, and isn't harmful.

Have you actually set your tank back up and seen a difference minus the Mag 12? Honestly all I get from your story is that your Mag 12, despite a bit of rust, has been reliably working for years without issue and that someone at Danner did pull some bull out of their *** with the claim that you need to clean the pump every month, who does that? No one.

I did restart the tank but with the mag 12. I didnt spot the rust until I gave up on the tank and unpluged the tank.

 

[Mmiller40gt]

Rust off a couple screws had NOTHING to do with your tank problems. Your looking for a scape goat. Look elsewhere. Now if you had a rio pump that melted down and released black tar all over your aquarium your would have a point Been there, done that


FWIW the bubble blaster pumps and several others with screws rust as well. Its not a big deal. I have been diving and seen corals growing over and encrusting rusted shipwrecks.

 

[mtcoins123]

If you use a water conditioner or ro unit your water would be iron deficient anyways so a little rust which i believe is the iron oxidizing and leaching back into the water would probably never even cause your water to go above "normal" FE content. This had nothing to do with your lps problems imo

 

[rtparty]

Rust off a couple screws had NOTHING to do with your tank problems. Your looking for a scape goat.

Really? You can be so certain about something like that? You happen to know everything that could be in that screw?

We all know what rust is and most of the time won't cause issues but we are NEVER that certain. I remember someone on here finding a razor blade hidden in their sand and all their issues went away when they removed it.

But they purposely sink old ships because reefs thrive around them.

So we never know. We are never that certain in this hobby.



Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[meshwheel]

If your running any kind of carbon, synthetic resins etc. they will pull any metals right out of the water. I have had rust in my tanks too. Never could I see any problems from it.....

 

[tynman]

I started this thread to show everyone how the mag pumps rust. I'm not expert at this but it's not bugs that killed my sps. And if u have an sps tank with rusty pumps then your lucky. If you would like to try the mag 12 from my tank and u have sps tank I'll be more then happy to give it to you to prove me wrong. Cause I'm done with this hobby. Time to move on to the next one...

 

[ReachTheSky]

Sorry to hear about your SPS issues but I would have to agree with the rest of the folks here and say there's a strong likelihood that it was not caused by the pump. Up until recently, I was using a Mag Drive pump for close to two years. My friend has been using a Mag Drive for just over two years. Neither one of our corals are dead or dying.

Mag Drives are very popular pumps and they've been around for decades. I'm sure there's thousands of reefers out there using them. If they do rust and kill corals, we'd have heard about it a long time ago.

 

[Mmiller40gt]

I started this thread to show everyone how the mag pumps rust. I'm not expert at this but it's not bugs that killed my sps. And if u have an sps tank with rusty pumps then your lucky. If you would like to try the mag 12 from my tank and u have sps tank I'll be more then happy to give it to you to prove me wrong. Cause I'm done with this hobby. Time to move on to the next one...

Ill take it and even pay you. If you bought it used and it was run in a tank with copper then that *might* be a problem. A tiny bit of rust did not cause your tank to fail. Sorry to see you leave the hobby but you should look inward to find the true cause. I can say with 100% certainty that a couple rusty screws did not crash your tank.

 

[tynman]

Sorry to hear about your SPS issues but I would have to agree with the rest of the folks here and say there's a strong likelihood that it was not caused by the pump. Up until recently, I was using a Mag Drive pump for close to two years. My friend has been using a Mag Drive for just over two years. Neither one of our corals are dead or dying.

Mag Drives are very popular pumps and they've been around for decades. I'm sure there's thousands of reefers out there using them. If they do rust and kill corals, we'd have heard about it a long time ago.

Thanks.
Give the pump 3 or 4 years. Then if you see anything dying off you will know the first place to look.. I hope it never happens to you.
Its a strong pump and never had a problem with it running. A friend of mine found the same thing about a year ago in his tank and his LPS dying on him, he found the pump rusting... So I didnt put 2 and 2 together and I didnt check mine. Well I think I should have.

There are a bunch of threads on diffrent forums about the mags rusting you just need to put in a search.

Good luck in the hobby.

 

[tynman]

Ill take it and even pay you. If you bought it used and it was run in a tank with copper then that *might* be a problem. A tiny bit of rust did not cause your tank to fail. Sorry to see you leave the hobby but you should look inward to find the true cause. I can say with 100% certainty that a couple rusty screws did not crash your tank.

It has never been used in copper. I bought the pump new. You can have the pump as long as your willing to pay the shipping.

I just dont want you or anyone else bad mouthing me if the same thing happens to there tank.

 

[tynman]

If your running any kind of carbon, synthetic resins etc. they will pull any metals right out of the water. I have had rust in my tanks too. Never could I see any problems from it.....

Do you keep sps? I ran carbon and I dont think that helped.

No I didnt have bugs. So I dont know what happened but it did.