For the past 5 years I have been using (or rather trying to use), a couple of Tunze 6105s as my primary water mover. They worked great, when they worked. I even had them jacked into my GHL profilux controller which allowed me to adjust their flowrate programatically. However, the problem with my Tunzes, is that they were ridonkulously unreliable. I have a salt bucket full of dead Tunzes *sadface*. I returned a couple of them for warranty but some of them ended up out of warranty. I wish someone had let me know that they were meant to be disposable like q-tips.
Anyway, sometime this past spring yet another one failed *sad face*. I ran with just one Tunze 6105 all spring, summer and fall. I really didn't have time to do anything about it. I also didn't want to just run out and buy yet another Tunze. A Vortec perhaps? I'm not really a fan of those either because every time I'm at someone's house that has a Vortec on their tank I can hear the whirr-verp whirr-verp of the external motor. I realize that they don't bother people but they bother me.
Last week when I finally had time to do something about replacing my dead Tunze I decided that I would try out one of them Vortunzes. Wait, crap, that's not right, hang on.. .. sorry, Jebaos.
While I was at the store Denny mentioned the "
New Thing" that was all the rage with the cool kids these days, the Jebao RW! Since I'm still running metal halides, I figured this was my one shot at maybe getting to sit at the cool kids lunch/wings table again. So anyway, he showed me the Jebao RW-8, a wireless(ish) version of the Jebaos! I like wireless(ish). He convinced me to grab a couple of the RW-8s that they had in stock. I wasn't immediately convinced that the RW-8s would be enough flow, but sadly they didn't have the next size up, the RW-15s. Well, what the heck, for under $100 a pop, why not.
So I brought home a pair, hooked them up, and started to tinker. After poking around the control panel I quickly figured out how to sync them up. It was actually pretty easy considering I hadn't even read the manual yet. Set one as the Master and the second one as the Slave. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I sat back and watched both of them happily pushing water in unison. Cool.
My first impression was one of amazement by how much water these little suckers pushed! They appeared to push as much water as my Tunze 6105s. This despite the fact that the 6105 is *supposed* to push roughly 3000(ish) gph whereas the Jebao RW-8 is *supposed* to push only 2000(ish) gph. At any rate, I was satisfied with their flow rate and quite amazed by their compact size! My Tunzes took up a heck of a lot of room while the Jebaos are almost HALF their size! AMAZBALLS!
So then I decided to play around again with the settings. Next up was trying the different modes and power levels. What I instantly fell in love with was their wave making ability. I've always wanted a wave in my tank but I have no room for a wave maker and I could never for the life of me get my tunzes to sync up properly to generate a wave. I have no idea why (user error I'm sure). At any rate, with the Jebaos, after setting them to Master/Slave and dialing in the wave (mode 1), both powerheads pulsed in unison and generated a nice little wave for me. I could adjust the frequency of the wave with a speed dial. I was yet again amazed! I had a wave going in my tank with two little powerheads the size of the little Korellia that I use in my salt mixing container, and all at a cost of $180 ! Truly AMAZBALLS!
I am totally expecting one of these to fail within a year, but at their cost compared to the Tunzes, I'll still be ahead of the game!
In the meantime, I am totally enjoying the gentle swoosh-swoosh, sway-sway of the new wave in my tank.