Vortech vs koralia

I have zero wires coming out of my display tank. Makes a big difference when people are not distracted by a massive wavemaker sticking 6+" off the glass with wires coming out of it

 

i have 2 mp10's on my 75 that i run 100%. in my opinion it is not very loud, but yes they can certainly be heard. However it is quiet enough that i sleep right across from the tank with no issues. I run an mp10 on my frag tank at about 40% and its completely quiet. In my opinion it strongly depends on the setting used, and percent output. I find the loudest setting is nutrient export mode at 100%, in my experience.

 

No wires at all?! That must be convenient! That would make it 100x easier to get my canopy on and off (as I have been working on my LEDs lately). Not even heaters? Does the temp stay consistant throughout your system?

Thanks everyone for your opinions. Unfortunately they didn't help me one bit lol. I am still at the conclusion: some people think they are loud, some people think that they are quiet. Although, it does seem like the people who think they are quiet are not running them at full power.

For the time being, I think I am going to stick with the koralias. As of right now I have four of them in my DT (because I am using the fifth one for something else), and I'd like to think that they are creating semi-random flow for two reasons. First, because they are pointed at each other. Second is that there are many smaller ones vs one or two bigger ones. When I get around to buying another EB8 for my apex, I may put them on timers to try to simulate a wavemaker effect.

As for the looks of the koralias, they don't look great, but that is also because I recently upgraded to a 90g DT and it is a bit empty looking because the corals still need to grow into it.

Thanks again for everyones input. Next time I am at that LFS that has them on display I will take a look at them and listen to them at full power.

 

Right now you wouldn't have semi-random flow, you'd have constant flow. They might be mismatched and pointed at eachother, but that flow is constant all the time.

If you put them on timers you'd have semi-random flow because the flow patterns would be changing, albeit in a predictable loop style cycle.

Just remember, most of the people that complain about vortechs are the people that have never owned them in my experience. I was one of them. Now I'd never run anything else.

 

The two biggest complaints about Vortechs are noise and cost. The Noise is relative to each person. The cost is the determining factor with most. This is an expensive hobby. In the scheme of things, $285, $465, or $765 (10, 40, 60) is small when you have $5000+ in livestock. Some don't have that much invested (yet), but would/could in a couple years time.

 

As others have said, noise is all relative. I have two kids, two dogs, two cats, two wives (just kidding), and my tank is in an open concept kitchen/dining room. My vortechs could be powered by an airplane engine and I wouldn't notice.

What room is your tank in? If you sleep in the same room as the tank, the vortechs do have a "night mode" that cuts power to 50% for 10 or so hours. This makes them fairly silent.

Otherwise, the pulse modes are loud and could be annoying over an extended period of time and there is a pronounced noise when they "ramp up" from a slower speed to 100%.

If you pair them with an Apex controller and the wireless module, you can customize the pump settings. So, you could program them to automatically switch to quieter operational modes at certain times of the day. The night mode I mentioned earlier can be set with the actual Apex controllers that ship with the pump. You have to manually switch between all the other modes unless you have an Apex.

 

I agree, the pulse modes are the noisiest no question about it

 

i have an mp10 and when run on max yes it can be a little noisy. Get a bigger pump and run it at 50% and it will be silent.

 

yes, I have no wires.
The heater is in the sump. Only one wire is behind my tank and that is the wire to my sea swirl.

 

IMO circulation pumps are just as important as lighting of a skimmer. IME I would only run Tunze or Vortech.

I do love the very wide flow and undertow of the Vortechs. I run my MP40s in manual so they are quiet