Tank Disaster - Need Opinions ASAP

[Northstar24]

Awesome, Emailed Lifereef last night because I hadn't heard anything. His email said that he got the call, but that my message was 'unintelligible'. He also said that he wasn't surprised that Champion Lighting didn't want to do anything with the warranty claim, and that I would likely have to call Blue Line directly - who would ask for an invoice showing the purchase date. He also went on to tell me that not having a return pump wasn't a huge deal because it was the live rock that provides the filtration for the tank, you don't have to have a skimmer, sump or refugium to run a tank

Great - thanks for the Reefkeeping 101 class- not really what I needed. He also advised that I should have a backup system pump on hand. He has me there - I probably should have one.

The issue here really isn't the system pump that decided to grenade its internals. Its not the fact that the Skimmer is off line, or that the system water isnt being scrubbed by the macro in the fuge. Its the temp of the tank. I have 800 watts of heater that were pulled out of overlfows and the sump and placed next to 5000 gph of power head and the tank STILL dropped 8 degrees in 12 hours.

I have a replacement pump, that took 4 hours to get into place because of how the sump system fits into the stand under my tank. Obviously swapping a system pump is a big deal. Its why I went with a pump that had a 5 year warranty and was rated for a 10 year service life - its supposed to be low maintenance. Now that I have an issue, the parties involved don't seem to concerned about my issue. The only person that I've actually been able to get help from is the person I SHOULD have spent my money with in the first place.....

Sorry for the rant - its been a hell of a week

 

[Northstar24]

Update for those that were following:

LifeReef doesn't handle warranty claims, and suggested that I call Champion Lighting directly. I did that, and found out that Champion doesn't handle warranty claims either, and that parts are on backorder for these pumps for at least 3 weeks, possibly longer

Got back with lifereef, after trying to find a number for Blue Line on their website (all they had was a generic [email protected] email address for general inquiries)

Lifereef suggests calling Champion back and asking if anyone has a number for Blue Line. Mentions again that I should have had a backup pump ready to go for situations like this.

After several attempts to contact Blue Line via the email on their website, they aren't going to warranty the pump. They claim the only way this could have happened was for something to get sucked up by the pump. Upon examining the pump after tear down with my dad (hydrolic engineer that has worked on pumps like this and hydrolics for almost 40 years) we dont think a snail was actually sucked up. Anything that would have been large enough to tear off a strainer arm in the front case would have been too large to make it up the output pipe of the pump, and would have been left behind in the pump casing. All i found in the pump casing was the sheared off fins and part of the arm that came off the front case. Nothing was expelled back out the intake pipe either...

I contacted BRS and ordered a Pan World pump from them, its got the same output characteristics and dimenions as both the Blue Line and the Iwaki - but its quieter than both.

At some point I'll probably break down and buy replacement parts for the Blue Line, but I will NEVER own another piece of Blue Line equipment, spend money with Lifereef, or Champion Lighting and Supply (this will be difficult, as they sell to many local fish stores - including the one I frequent)

Moral of the story? Be Prepared with a backup of critical system components, warranty's for some companies aren't worth the paper they are printed one, and make sure to install your system pump with a union - that was the best $4 I've spent on the hobby

 

[BL1]

That's a shame and disappointing to hear North, I've never heard anything but great things about lifereef.

 

[Samhain]

Man, the whole saga just sucks. Except that nothing has ended up dying. I'm sorry you've had such rotten luck.

 

[chuck78]

Thanx for the heads up!