Shhhh, Do You Hear That?

I've decided that I am going to make some lil' honey a good wife one day. How many girls do you know that can take apart a centrifugal pump, fix it and put it back together? Yeah, I didn't think so.

The one annoying thing about my reef tank has been the noise and floor vibration. I figured it was the way it was plumbed and unavoidable - and to some degree that is still true I think. But the floor vibration was driving me nuts. Over the last few days the pump stopped drawing water and made a terrible squelching noise. Fearing the worse - that I was going to have to replace it, I made a decision to pull it out of the tank and open it up.

Two hours later - mainly because I didn't have the right type of allen wrench...the pump was back in the tank and turning over 800 gallons an hour. But the best thing - besides avoiding the $300 replacement cost - was that it was quieter and the vibration throughout my pad was gone.

Turns out some macroalgae got sucked in to the inlet as well as a small piece of plastic. That will do it.