How often do you swap out your equipment?

[YHSublime]

I found my Neotherm heater the other day, flashing on 95, and my water/tank temperature sitting at 74F. Luckily I have spare heaters, and quickly remedied the issue, however, I got to thinking: How often do you replace your equipment, and should I be doing it more frequently? This was one of the first heaters I've ever bought brand new, and it was expensive compared to other brands ($80 for 150W) but it only lasted about two years. Seems like a short life span to me, but what's $80 compared to thousands of dollars of SPS? 

 

Every six months I clean my pumps (return, skimmer) and every year or so I replace my doser heads, regardless if needed or not. This week I'm replacing all my wavemakers with new models, simply because I'd rather be ahead of any potential equipment failures. I have backup pumps, lights, heaters, etc, but how often do you maintain or routinely change out your equipment regardless of performance? 

[menglish]

So I have been running the same 2 eheim 250W heater for the past 5 years. in my 180DT. They are run off my Apex and are set 1 degree apart.  What i do differently is this, every late spring/summer, i take them out of the tank, clean them and store them outside the tank.  In the winter, when the temp decrease, they i reinstall them. That has worked well for me.

I cleaned my return pump/skimmer 1x  a year and my flow pumps about 1x per month. I use 2 filter socks that i swap out every week

[YHSublime]

Ooooof. Hate filter socks as something that needs to be routinely maintained. 

 

Yeah, I was expecting a longer shelf life on a heater for that amount of time. Especially with a PSK pinwheel that's operated for a decade with 0 hitches. So you store your heaters outside of the tank for Fall and then put them back on in the winter? I'm hot blooded, house is usually at 70 year round, I don't know if I could play that game. 

[menglish]

My tank is in the basement so i do not need any heat during the summer time.

I have gotten used to the filter sock cleaning every week. I hose them off then soak them in 10% Clorox for a few days, Not a big deal for me

[WheresTheReef]

I don’t preemptively replace equipment. My pockets aren’t deep enough ;). Maybe should consider in some cases.
 

I clean my return pump and skimmer pumps 2x/year. Clean powerheads once they start to grow a little algae on them. With euphyllia in the tank I can judge the flow reduction pretty easily. Mostly in the tank with the knock off pumps. My Octo powerheads are very powerful and rock my 120g tank at the lowest setting even with algae growth.

 

 I occasionally calibrate my doser heads. If they hold calibration then I just leave them alone. The most important one to me is alkalinity. My doser adds soda ash in 5 doses. One glance at the ph graph shows me 5 little spikes in the morning. I also test alk several times a week. Others tests are 1/week.

 

 I also utilize warnings with the apex. The EB832 monitors power draw. I have my Apex warn me if the power usage falls outside a range. My Apex also alerts me if the pumps are turned on, but not drawing the expected power.

 

 I once got caught without some vital back up equipment. Lesson learned. I now have backup equipment to hold me over in most cases. Spare pumps, lights, doser, heaters etc. Even spare replacement filters for the RODI unit. Now have a spare membrane too.
 

I know some people have a ton of equipment tied directly to their controller. That scares me (unless you can afford a backup controller and modules). I use my apex to control the tank, but if it goes out I can plug everything into a power strip and keep rocking since they can work independently of the controller. I also have standalone emergency ATOs since my main ATO is tied to my Apex. Separate timer for my T5. Even with this I feel fortunate to have this community to help in a pinch. I have been saved by some reefing buddies here on WAMAS on a couple instances.
 

For heaters I use 2 heaters for redundancy. My Apex keeps the temp bounded, but I rely on the built in thermostats to keep the temp mostly stable.

 

For filter socks I moved to mesh socks from BRS. Very easy to rinse and clean w/o bleach or a washing machine. Try them and you will never go back to felt.

 

Anyways, sorry for the novel. Just wanted to give my philosophy on reefing equipment.

[ReefAddict]

I play the backup game rather than preventative replacement.  Last week I lost my 5 yr old Vectra M1.  Put my old mag pump in until the replacement power supply arrived.  Same with my heaters and power heads.  I have appropriate backups that can make do until new replacements arrive.  

[YHSublime]

13 minutes ago, WheresTheReef said:

I don’t preemptively replace equipment. My pockets aren’t deep enough ;). Maybe should consider in some cases.

 

Haha, neither are mine, but when you've got the equivalent of a new 4 door sedan in corals...

Also, to be fair, I've bought a lot of my equipment second hand, and I'm looking to make some investments. 

 

22 minutes ago, WheresTheReef said:

I don’t preemptively replace equipment. My pockets aren’t deep enough ;). Maybe should consider in some cases.
 

I clean my return pump and skimmer pumps 2x/year. Clean powerheads once they start to grow a little algae on them. With euphyllia in the tank I can judge the flow reduction pretty easily. Mostly in the tank with the knock off pumps. My Octo powerheads are very powerful and rock my 120g tank at the lowest setting even with algae growth.

 

 I occasionally calibrate my doser heads. If they hold calibration then I just leave them alone. The most important one to me is alkalinity. My doser adds soda ash in 5 doses. One glance at the ph graph shows me 5 little spikes in the morning. I also test alk several times a week. Others tests are 1/week.

 

 I also utilize warnings with the apex. The EB832 monitors power draw. I have my Apex warn me if the power usage falls outside a range. My Apex also alerts me if the pumps are turned on, but not drawing the expected power.

 

 I once got caught without some vital back up equipment. Lesson learned. I now have backup equipment to hold me over in most cases. Spare pumps, lights, doser, heaters etc. Even spare replacement filters for the RODI unit. Now have a spare membrane too.

 

These are all good points, having a controller is a plus when it comes to things like power consumption, and spotting differences/discrepancies. 

I also keep spares of just about everything, including RODI filters/membranes. 

 

34 minutes ago, WheresTheReef said:

For heaters I use 2 heaters for redundancy. My Apex keeps the temp bounded, but I rely on the built in thermostats to keep the temp mostly stable.

 

For filter socks I moved to mesh socks from BRS. Very easy to rinse and clean w/o bleach or a washing machine. Try them and you will never go back to felt.

 

Anyways, sorry for the novel. Just wanted to give my philosophy on reefing equipment.

 

I think this will be my new plan moving forward, just using x2 heaters, I'm just terrified out a heater going on the fritz and frying my tank (I've had it happen before) and putting two heaters doubles those odds. 

 

I'm actually heavily considering swapping my sump out, and there is a spot for filter socks, I may give them a try. Especially since I have started broadcast feeding and my skimmer goes bonkers every time now. 

 

15 minutes ago, ReefAddict said:

I play the backup game rather than preventative replacement.  Last week I lost my 5 yr old Vectra M1.  Put my old mag pump in until the replacement power supply arrived.  Same with my heaters and power heads.  I have appropriate backups that can make do until new replacements arrive.  

 

I see the general consensus seems to be have backups, good thing I do! 

 

I guess it's like having a dog, you can feed it, but that's not all that's involved, lol. 

[ccurnick]

If you’re looking for new heaters, check out the IM Helio!

 

I used to replace heaters yearly or so. Just got the Helio ones and I’m hoping they last quiet a while haha. Different technology that doesn’t wear out as quickly. 

[Josh&Sarah]

I use a ranco controller that will outlive my tank and is cheap enough... the 2 finex heaters it runs I will replace in a few years no matter if they fail or not.  I've already had a wave maker "fail" or at least start rusting out.  Those were recently replaced.  I'm hoping to get a few years out of them if properly maintained.  As you know I just had a return pump failure.  That will be replaced Friday with an AC pump (sicce silent 4.0) which will maybe outlive the tank.  As things fail in the future I will be transitioning to less bells and whistles and more time tested.  My next powerhead will probably be butt simple tunze or some other thing like that.  My skimmer is also an old freebee with an AC pump.  Still runs great.  It is harder to adjust but it probably won't fail anytime soon, and its older for sure.  That leaves lights..... That at least seems to be the safest thing we purchase... radions and T5s probably will last a while.  MH is time tested though for sure.... Great topic. 

Edited February 24, 2021 by Josh&Sarah

[YHSublime]

10 hours ago, ccurnick said:

If you’re looking for new heaters, check out the IM Helio!

 

I used to replace heaters yearly or so. Just got the Helio ones and I’m hoping they last quiet a while haha. Different technology that doesn’t wear out as quickly. 

 

Cool, wondering if that's something that I'll be doing from here on out!

 

2 hours ago, Josh&Sarah said:

As you know I just had a return pump failure.  That will be replaced Friday with an AC pump (sicce silent 4.0) which will maybe outlive the tank.  As things fail in the future I will be transitioning to less bells and whistles and more time tested. 

 

The timing is serendipitous for you indeed! Another reminder to service and maintain our equipment! 

[WheresTheReef]

In keeping with this theme, I think one thing that can get overlooked is backing up our controller settings. I’ve invested time programming and configuring my modules for my Apex. Let’s say the brain were to go out and I needed to replace it. The Apex actually has a way to back up and restore my configuration. I found this link that should be pretty helpful. I went through the steps and made a back up. I also did the print to pdf as recommended. 
 

I ran into a problem where the webpage kept prompting me for my username/password over and over when trying to save the file. If you run into this problem just reboot the head unit and it should fix the problem.

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/apex-users-public-service-announcement.622847/