Stay away from Rio Pumps

Just thought I'd share my own personal experience with a Rio pump. I had (keyword had) a Rio 2100 pump running my Skimmer. I've heard horror stories about them before, but never thought it would happen to me. 6 Months ago I replaced my Return pump with something more reliable, and I'm glad I did that. But I figured I'd use the rio to run my skimmer... Pretty harmless. Or so I thought.

My wife woke me up this morning to tell me that my tank was emmitting a foul burning smell. When I got downstairs I yanked the Rio out of the sump, and upon doing so realized that my hands were covered with oil from the pump. There was also a nice "Exxon oil slick" on top of the water in the sump.

Anyway, after a few remedial fixes (Water change and Carbon,) I think I caught things before the tank went south, but I wouldn't put another rio in my tank if someone gave it to me.

Anyone here have a similar problem with these pumps?

Also, I only had enough salt on hand to do a 5 Gallon water change, so I vacuumed out the sump and scrubbed the last remaining bit of oil residue I could find and refilled the sump with the freshly mixed saltwater. Do you think this will be enough of a water change, or should I pick up some supplies and do another big one? The fish and coral don't seem to be affected, but you never know...


Edited by Ryan Willden

Jake, Shaking it seemed to be the case for me last night too. It was not running, so I pulled it out of the sump and cleaned it up. Then I put it back into the sump and "smacked" it once, and it fired right up. So I didn't think much about it. Then I found it burned up and leaking all over my sump in the morning.

I have the same setup on my return pump now John. I'm using a Mag 24 and a SCWD. I dig it.

Edited by Ryan Willden

I had a Rio 2100 in my sump and It literally smoked after running dry overnight. thankfully it didnt leak any oil. right now I have a 2100 inside my main tank and its going good (knock on wood).

Yeah, I was glad that I thought to unplug the Pump before Yanking it out of the sump this morning. That would have been bad.

I'm using the Mag 24 in an 80 Gallon Tank. I had to go with a larger pump to keep the scwd oscillating correctly.

Edited by Ryan Willden

Rio 1700 and below are cool but you get above that and it can
get pretty ugly sometimes ive also seen alot of Via Aqua
heatres Leak moisture inside eventualy shocking the tank with
a small charge thats why I run grounding probes on all my
tanks Grounding Probes wont help get the nasty electrically
burnt plastic epoxy stuff out but it will get the electricity out

Edited by STYLASTER

I have two Rio's running my little tank.  They work now but I will probably replace them in the future.

FYI,

Rio has recently change the design of their pumps.

The new design seems to be much more reliable.

 

I've had other powerheads that wouldn't restart. Here is a trick that worked for me.
The syringe with tubing or the turkey baster that you use for feeding coral or other handy things, can be used to squirt a jet of water into the powerhead outlet which turns the impellor just enough to un-jam it. It's also gentler on the pump than hitting it.