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Equipment that did not stand up to the test of time

4K views 35 replies 26 participants last post by  Desert Pupfish 
#1 ·
#2 ·
A recent disappointment: Tidal filters. Bought two to put on my 30 gallons and they were total junk. Plugged up constantly. Noisy as all get-out with snails and gravel constantly bouncing around in the casing. They drove me to distraction with their need for constant tampering.
Both went into the garbage.
 
#3 ·
It blows my mind that suction cups are used to hold things intended to last for many years underwater when suction cups themselves seem to be good for only 3-4 years underwater.

To the subject, I'll mention the well-designed Tunze powerheads. They use a magnet to affix to the tank which is nice, but I don't think I still have a single one running currently. And I bet I've bought ten of them over the years. Also Ebo Jaegar heaters used to be my go-to brand but after a while every one I owned started getting moisture inside of them.
 
#5 ·
@jra2212 posted this



https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/...ent-do-you-have-thats-stood-test-od-time.html



I would like to start the opposite thread. What equipment do you own that did not stand up to the test of time?



I will go first my Eheim skimmer 350. It still works great but the suction cups it comes with are crap and did not last long. Problem? No way to replace them so that sucks.

Technically it doesn’t suck. [emoji13]

I second suction cups. Either they fail to stick at all, or they become bonded with the strength of Hercules so you can barely get them off (at which point they never stick again).


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
#20 ·
CO2 diffusers (powerhead to chop bubbles, magnet to attach) - brilliant idea but sooo finicky on the ones I’ve had. Either work great or get blocked, get overloaded with the CO2 rate that worked fine yesterday or magnet gets a death rattle (but it’s all good :) ).
 
#21 ·
I am completely LED now but Coralife bulbs were the worst. I had a 30 inch fixture from them some bulbs would fail in 6 months, some even quicker. My UV sterilizer bulb was the same. Wasted so much money on bulbs, it was the only option for that size fixture. It looks like they have updated the product but they had a timer/powerstrip that failed on so many people but some actually caught fire. Even though some products are reliable, my light fixtures never failed, for example, they were expensive for the output (often just a bit more than half of the same type of bulb with a fixture with good reflectors).

I wish I had a list of heaters that have failed on me, I know the ones that don't, forget the ones that do. The worst was one they sold at Petco or Petsmart that looks like it is filled with black sand. Those always fail.

In general, most things have been the quality I expected or not well below. I typically don't buy cheaper brands for important components like filters, lighting, or any other critical component of the tank. I can't say that every purchase I have made has been worthwhile but those bulbs and that heater just shouldn't have been on the market.
 
#23 ·
The suction cups on an Eheim Skim 350 are easy to replace. Just pull them straight out, and replace with Eheim part number 7445848. I get mine (and all my other small Eheim parts) from ebay seller rainbowoik in the UK, which I'm apparently not allowed to link to directly.

As for your original question, I'd say any Eheim canister filter that uses the horrible tap connector found on the top of the Pro3 and Pro4. Adding insult to injury, if you're in the US and have one fail under warranty, the company that Eheim outsourced their US support to when Eheim shut down their US operations in 2016 (Cobalt, I think) won't help you. I was told that it was my own fault for neglecting to grease the gears inside the tap connector. It's a sealed unit -- you can't access the gears to grease them, and there's no mention of this part needing maintenance in Eheim's manual for the Pro3, which doesn't exactly skimp on details. When that tap connector breaks and gets stuck in the head, you basically get to break it apart piece by piece to get it out. If you're lucky, it breaks with the valve open so the filter is still usable.
 
#24 ·
Jees I wish I had known that about the suction
cups. At the time when I needed them I could not find a replacement for the and googled forums and only saw posts like this

https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/9-equipment/1100225-eheim-surface-skimmer-suction-cups.html

where people complained they could not get them and then found other posts of people jimmy rigging hangers and whatnot. Urg. Thanks for the tip.

I have the pro 3 and have not had any problems with that double tap connector and did not know it was crappy. Great now that I know I bet it will break down on me. LOL
 
#25 ·
My first Fluval LED Plant light about 6-7 years ago? The transformer always got super hot right out of the box. Ended up not working after a month and i returned it and went back to my tried and true Giessmann T5 lights. Interestingly enough, i bought the Fluval 3.0 light about 6 months ago and love it.
 
#26 ·
I bought those new-ish usb powered air pumps that use a rotary motor. I say new-ish because my guess is they entered the market due to an expired patent. I bought two from ebay china and 4 from the Co-op. I mean they are the most quiet air pump I've ever used and I love the ones that work, but so far both china and one Co-op pump have developed a clicking noise after a couple months of use. The added noise only brings it up to the level of your standard air pump but it has still been a letdown.

Hopefully I'll have time to do a tear down soon to find the issue.
 
#28 ·
I just had an LED fixture go out and started going through lights in storage to temporarily put on the tank until I can find a new transformer. I m putting 4 Hagen Glo T5 units in the trash today. All are powering off and on and burning out bulbs. Bet they were under warranty when I unplugged them too.

I bought those new-ish usb powered air pumps that use a rotary motor. I say new-ish because my guess is they entered the market due to an expired patent. I bought two from ebay china and 4 from the Co-op. I mean they are the most quiet air pump I've ever used and I love the ones that work, but so far both china and one Co-op pump have developed a clicking noise after a couple months of use. The added noise only brings it up to the level of your standard air pump but it has still been a letdown.
I run similar Co-op pumps on shrimp tanks, only these have a plug. I agree they are super quiet and run great at first, but I'm on my 3rd pump on a tank I just set up in February. None have quit, but output has declined drastically on each after a few months of run time. It's right in my office where I need the quietest pump possible too, or I'd just grab a vibrating pump and call it a day.
 
#27 ·
For me- it was about the Wifi outlets. I have used 2 different kinds: Kasa and Smartlife.
Kasa started failing regularly moments after purchase. Smartlife seems to be better... but the app is less user friendly.
 
#29 ·
Suction cups for sure. Especially in a tank running CO2. Equipment with moving parts would have to be Tetra air pumps. The bellows always tears. I did find a way to use inner-tube patches to repair them and make them probably tougher than how they started. But the main equipment that wears out is ME. Anyone with MTS may agree with this.
 
#31 ·
Yeah, that does suck. Seems like the caps would seal up well but they don't. I usually wrap a paper towel around them but half the time I don't think about it until after I've shaken the first one.

I'd add just about every check valve that I've tried. I'll have two different versions in some lines and neither one of the damn things work well.
 
#34 ·
I miss the old whisper air pumps that you could find parts for. I've still got one in service. Thing is probably 30+ years old. New ones are disposable I think.

I've had suction cups that didn't work even when new. Hate the things. OTOH, the ones I got for a tank divider stuck TOO well, which made things "fun" (try wrestling a tank divider past a glass support when the suction cups are attaching themselves to everything. It's like trying to put a cat in a carrier to take to the vet)

Finnex temp controller. Beside the probe cord not being long enough for me to adequately hide it (was going to put it on my largest tank but would have had cords running everywhere, mostly at the front), it started acting up within 6 months of putting it to use.
 
#35 ·
The MaxSpect G2 lights I had on my reef tank..... the LED blue LED modules just kept blowing out one after another. Got so bad they eventually discontinued it and did an exchange program. The exchange was such a crap deal that I just kept the broken old ones, as it would have cost me another $600 after the $1200 I'd already paid. I keep thinking I'll fix them up some day but never get around to it. Of everything in all my tanks, this is still the one I'm most angry about.


Wardley Sandman filter. The good part was the integrated fluidized bed. But it used thin pads for the mechanical and carbon, which needed changing much more often than anything else I've ever used. The sand also managed to get into the impeller all the time. Constant maintenance nightmare.
 
#36 ·
Jebo 2100F internal sponge filter that I bought from a local LFS in San Diego that does planted tanks--because that's what they said they used, and I'd been looking at sponge filters. Even dialed all the way down the outflow was way too strong, and buffeted the plants & fish around. They didn't have add-on spray bars, so I had to jury rig something, but it was still too much. The sponge canister compartments were hard to fit together & take apart, and I was always worried I'd force it too much & break one. What did break were the two little tabs that attached the sponge canisters to the pump. They would only fit in one position--limiting the positioning of the flow outlet, and one broke almost immediately. I tried supergluing it back in place, but then the other one broke. Called the store, and they agreed to give me store credit for it. They swear by them--maybe mine was just from a bad batch? It did allow some flexibility so you could remove one or more of the sponges from its plastic compartment with filter floss or some other media if you wanted.

I ended up getting an AquaClear 70 HOB. It's fine, but again the flow is a little strong, and you can't add on spray bars to control or redirect it. And it gets worse if evaporation lowers the water level if you're away for any length of time. Next tank I'm gonna go back to plain sponge filters with spray bars on the outlet that you can customize. Though I'm sure those will have some drawbacks as well. Nothing's perfect.....
 
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