I purchased several Maxi Jet 1200 Mods and have been running them for about 3 months on my 180. They have all of a sudden stopped working at the same time. The Maxi Jets are working fine it is the Mod that is failing. Fisher12 claims he told me that they would not withstand the switching of my wave maker but I think he has selective memory I just can not pay $900 dollars for vortech's and wanted to know if anyone has any luck with cheaper powerheads that can withstand switching.
My maxijets with mods didn't stop working but they started making a ton of noise while on a wavemaker. I removed the wavemaker and my noise issue was gone after two days of running all the time.
AC powerheads with propellers will not last long on wavemakers because they can startup spinning backwards which causes a lot of wear. You need DC powerheads for wavemakers.
the newer version of the koralia's are 12v dc and have wave maker capabilities. they are relatively cheap to for the gph they can move. i have the older version and they tend to leak alittle stray voltage. not enough to matter really but i figured i would throw that out there.
I used hagen powerheads with my wavemaker for many yrs, once in awhile I would get one that clattered upon start up but they would always settle down . Just last yr I had to break down and replace two of them with maxi-jets(no mods) and they work ok but I have the timer set where they alternate about every 12-15 minutes so they are not switching back and forth every minute or less.
I started with Hagans years ago and had reasonable success but I was not aware that it was the DC vs AC that was the problems with less expensive (THAN A VORTEC) powerheads not handling the wavemakers. I liked the Maxi Jets not so much for the current output but for the magnet mods that allowed you to move it around the tank. I think that the hydor is the definite way to go with DC current. Thanks everyone.
While the switching was an issue, upon removing the powerheads to clean them I noticed that the lower flow made the corals respond much better. I put the cleaned maxijet back in the tank with the mod and left it on. The lower flow is what the tank really needed, my lps corals were very appreciative.
