MP10 not pushing much water ,, options ?

[Myka]

Originally Posted by mike31154

I do know that if you put an EcoTech too close to the surface, it will pull a little vortex, a mini water tornado from the surface. The MPs do have a closed section on their cage that should be oriented to the top to prevent this, but there's a limit to how close you can put them to the surface.

Bottom line is, the OP has a VorTech, not a Tunze, so not sure if advice regarding placement would be comparable.

The Tunze will also pull a vortex in if placed too close to the surface. There is a wide-flow cage and a narrow-flow cage. I always use the wide-flow cage because it actually pushes more flow and is what Tunze came out with when it was discovered that Tunze pumps pushed significantly less water volume than advertised.

Anyway, the positioning advice has to with oscillating flow, and has nothing to do with the brand of pump used. The point is that you can create more flow with a pump by using it at the surface and creating an oscillating flow pattern where the water flows across the surface, hits the other side, goes down the other side, back towards the pump across the bottom of the tank, and finally back up to the pump. Since the water flow is circular or oscillating, it takes less power to keep that flow going. If you have random flow you will need much, much stronger pumps to achieve the same amount of water movement.

Think about stirring water in a 5-gallon bucket. If you go around in a circle it is easy to move your spoon around and takes little effort. If you go around in random directions it is difficult to move your spoon around and it takes more effort.