Vortech Failure
 

Anyone have a dry side fail on one of these units. I put a post up a while back about the noise mine was making from new. The noise has now got alot louder. It is under warranty and I am getting a new part sent to me but the noise is really ****in me off and I see there is a screw on the inner part of the dry side. Has anyone adjusted it at all? Dont want to do so unless someone else has tried with some sort of success.

I have talked to Ecotech Marine, as I had one dry side replaced, and just last week I was again talking with them, as my second unit sometimes gets noisy also.

They said not to turn that screw on the dry side, as it is meant to be tightened from the other side. I guess under the EcoTech logo, there is something under there. At least that is what they indicated.

So I would not suggest turning it.

did you try taking apart & cleaning the wet side - my bearing seized and it was noisy before. the get crap in them and tearing them apart/soaking in vinegar really helps,

Ya I cleaned the wet side with vinegar. It's definetly the dry side. It's a rattling sound and I tried it with out the dry side attached for a second and the noise does'nt change. It appears as if the rotating part that has the screw I asked about is not in line 'cause when it powers down it looks like it is out of round. Thanks, I guess I wont be pulling any stickers off to adjust the screw since it will most likely void the warranty.

There are just waaay too many problems with these Vortechs for the price they charge for them. Not to say that at half the price (where they should be priced) it would be any more acceptable for them to fail like this.

Makes me want a wavebox.

Oy! Do not do this if you still have a warranty (or even if you don't). Its a real beehatch getting those bearings off and you'll end up doing some real damage. Better off having ecotech deal with it (which is what I should have done instead of trying to get the bearings off and ultimately shattering the magnet).

You need to try them Mark... I do love mine overall and even though they are expensive, they are worth the money. The settings on the Vortechs do more than any wavebox can do. Sorry, but a wavebox just doesn't compare in my opinion, in areas of creating undertows, exporting of nutrients and elimination of dead spots.

Edit: also in regards to service, I can say they are great, quite comparable to Hydor.

I don't think waveboxes ever claimed to do any of that though, they were just designed to create a more natural wave motion in a tank. I can definitely say that I get way more intense (like ridiculously intense) polyp extension with my wavebox than with the vortech (not to say that the vortech doesn't do all that you say but then again so does my tunze 6080 and it was a third the price of a vortech).

If it's under warranty and a new dry side is in the mail I wouln't mess with it. Clearly there's a problem somewhere in there if the noise is getting worse.

As far as 'way too many problems', I have two MP40s that have been running great, one for over two years and the other for well over a year. There are only two pump/powerhead manufacturers that stick their necks out by having their own forums on RC and that's EcoTech and Tunze. So yes, you're going to read about problems on these forums but you have to remember for every problem there are likely thousands of these products running without a hitch. There were some issues with my original MP40, but it was a Gen 1 with the old magnet and it was a relatively low cost fix. I also sent one dry side in due to an odd noise even though it was running fine, but since it was under warranty and EcoTech service is excellent, I decided to have them look at it.

One of the advantages of the VorTech is the small footprint in your display, I can't imagine replacing my MP40s with something as large as a wavebox.