[PICS]Koralia mod: Cutting out every other "bar" from the grate cover

I wonder if this would work on the flu all knock off pump I have as well, I might see if my flag has an old Moravia laying around for me to experiment on!

 

I'm skeptical doing this would provide any noticeable increased flow...

 

It adds a mind boggling amount of flow I've had some running like this for a couple of years now with no I'll effects.

 

If I had to do one or the other, I'd cut up the front grate, as this is where the water comes out, rather than pulling in more water which still would be significantly blocked by the front grate if left unmodified. FWIW I'll be adding another bar in attached to the one running vertical on the front grate for reinforcement.

They are on a hydor SmartWave, I only have astrea snails which are all too big to get in there, and my fish is a royal gramma, not an active swimmer for the most part. See below my reply to mike's quote.

lol, did you even read my other posts? or just the title and then decide to post? As I have said, I have no sure-fire way of accurately measuring it, but it has at least doubled the flow. I'll do a youtube search for you.

Even without reinforcing the central bar? Interesting, I might just leave it then.

FWIW I feel like most of you guys are acting like I am running the powerheads with out a front grate at all. I doubt even a clown goby could fit between the grates, its a very small area.

Generally people lose fish to powerheads for 2 reasons:
a) the fish was sleeping near it and got stuck and torn up

OR​

b) the fish was sickly and couldn't swim away

Your average healthy fish doesn't simply get sucked into/onto a powerhead randomly.​

 

I agree, fish are not mindless numpties who swim into peril without any sense.
This is very interesting though, would your principle also apply to a jaebo WP40 as well ? What percentage do you think the flow is realistically increased by in your tests ?
Is there any risk of damaging the pump motors, over speed ? ?

 

Thank you. lol

While in theory it would work on any powerhead (got the idea from tunze modders) I can't imagine a wp-40 needing more flow.

Realistically I'd say the increase for my K-Nano 425gph is easily more than a 100% increase(if I had to say exactly, it looks like 120%), while the K-Nano 240gph is probably 80-90% increase.

After lots of searching and following up on people's mods, the only real problem that can happen is the central bar on the output grate breaking, however this only happened on much stronger pumps (K4 for one). The reason this mod works is that by removing all those bars, you provide less surface area the water has to move around. The motor doesn't move faster so there is no risk to damaging it.

Mikejrice has been running his like this for quite a while without any ill effects.

 

I have two nano 420s.
Once my Jebao wp10 comes in and does well, I'll give the mod a shot on one of the 420s...

 

Yeah, you'll see what I'm talking about. I also cleaned my powerheads out completely before the mod so that may have improved flow also, albeit only slightly.

 

My black tang is always darting into the from on my vortechs to eat the only bubble algae in my tank, he hasn't been clipped yet.

I've actually read people using this type of mod on tunze stream pumps too.

 

Hmmm, I have two Hydor Koralia Evolution 550 sitting in my garage. Another weekend project I suppose. Thanks!