DC Pump Review

don't have mine going yet...its ran a bit and was super quiet.

 

Gcarroll brought up an interesting point in this thread and in another one, wondering what failure rate is acceptable. My answer to that is it can be very high as long as it does not happen to me!! Since I will be in the market for a high capacity return pump soon, I ve been following the thread and am interested in peoples opinion so I can make a more informed decision. Gcarroll, do you know what the actual failure rate on the Jeabo is or where you are obtaining your information on it being unreliable? Is there any reliability info out there on other pumps for comparison? That may help some of us who are starting to do research before making a purchase.

 

There are areas to save money.This is not one.IMO The test of time should be given alot of consideration.All electrical devices are subject to failure.Getting an accurate failure rate is difficult. Jebao has a less then stellar track record so far.

 

Do I have an exact reliability rate? No. Jebao is responsible for building pumps under multiple brands. Waveline was first. They have had horrible failure rate. One hobbyist who was very vocal and positive about the brand admitted having 3 models of the pump. Overall he had 8 of 12 fail for him. Of course this well known hobbyist has many tanks with thousands of gallons. Another reef tank owner in another country was running the 5 wavelines and all 5 failed. Several people in my local area did a Jebao group buy. Even though I advised them against buying the DC return pumps, many purchased them any way. A few have already failed after less than 6 months. I do have one friend that purchased two Jebao DC 12000 pumps. And he has had no problems in the 6 months that he has been running them. He does however run them at only 50% power.
My biggest problem is that they do not nearly have the efficiency that they claim. I have seen a couple of different hobbyist state that the DC6000 has less flow than an Eheim 1262. (BTW, My friend showed me it is the same as his Eheim 1260) That’s right, a 900 gph pump outflows a 1600gph pump. This is where the ethics and magic play in. Jebao and their associates have not problem using fictional flow rates to make it seem as though their efficiency is superior to everything on the market. They are exploiting the fact that there is no governing body in the industry that enforces truth in marketing.
All I can say is, wait until you stop hearing about pump failures on the boards before you take the plunge on these products. Considering these pumps have been on the market for just a couple of years, there are many instances of failure. Just google “Jebao DC pump failure” I then challenge you to google any other long standing pump and you don’t get the same type results.

 

What was that external pump, popular one, it could change the impellars and all?
They had really high failure rates, where taken off the market, and then replaced with another that had a higher reliability.
Some one mentioned a RIO pump? What a power hog! LIke AV8 said- it's good for water changes and pumping this and that- not as a RP.

Also, the flow of a pump and what's advertised. Nearly every manufacturer it seems inflates their ratings.
And- of course the max flow is at 0 head height.

To know the flow for a given head, first, you HAVE to maximize the ID of the lines, etc.
I run my DC12000 with a 1.5" all the way up, very few bends which are long/large diameter/sanitary 90's and they're at the top of 10FT.
Then you have to accurately time a controlled amount of flow, like to a bucket in place of the return, know the volume and accurately time it to the second, then multiply to get hours, etc.
I actually did this on my Marineland 5500- still waiting as my emergency back up.

It's hard to tell actual flow otherwise. Sure you can notice BIG differences, but similar flows are really hard to tell by looking at a return flow pipe without objectively measuring volume and time.

For the price/power and flow- they're hard to beat. Especially the price.

And yes, they have had some failures. As I said, the AV power supply that came with mine failed already once.

 

All good feedback. I will continue to research before my purchase. Fortunately I have time. I almost pulled the trigger on a Refflow Dart the other day but decided to wait so that I could ask more questions first. Todd, glad to hear you are happy with the performance so far and honest about the power supply failure you had. Please update if you have any additional issues. It seems to me that no matter what choice I make, a back up ready to go is in order.

 

Unless you get an Eheim 1260 or 1262!

 

I got it directly from a reef octopus rep. They no longer use jebao so there must be something to the story. I don't see anything wrong with buying a cheap return as long as you are set up in a way it won't kill your tank. i.e. Home every day to check on the tank, not too much of an O2 demanding fish load ect.
I've gone 3 days with no return pump during a tank repair. ..but I only have 9 fish in a 225. Everyone's tank is different.
Of course realize sometimes it doesn't pay to go cheap.
Some things can "gitt'r done" cheap and some things can't.

 

I would assume that it is a reasonable assumption about Reef Octopus swathing to a different maker, however there are other business reasons why that could have occurred. Unfortunately no one seems to be able to say that one pump has a failure rate of "X %" and another with " Y %" so we are forced to rely on anecdotal information, word of mouth and "reputation" which can be both created and destroyed quickly in this age of social media and rapid communication. To me, that makes things like warranty, customer service and ease of repair and replacement all the more important. As with any other thing in this hobby, customizing for your individual system goes beyond how you stock or what type of lights you get. As I plan my build from scratch, each design change seems to affect every other area that I thought I had planned out well!!