Help! What is the most silent pump, eheim 1046 12v or iwaki RD-20/30??
 

Hi!

I'm finaly replacing my hydor L30 piece of s**** with something I hope is going to be better. All I can say about the L30 is that it was really lound in vibration, low frequency king of vibration. In fact, it vibrates so much that it is virtually impossible to silence. Now dont get me wrong, I really tried everything to get this pump's noise down. I placed bricks to absorb the sound waves, buried the reservoir in 50lb of sand, suspended the pump in the reservoir, placed some rubber pads underneath the reservoir... nothing really made the vibration go away. It was better, but hardly quiet by any means.

I read that the main two pumps that fall in the quiet category are either the eheim 1046 or the iwaki RD-30 or 20.

I'm looking for a pump, or two pumps in serie that could pass through 3 blocks and 1 big passive radiator like the Innovatek HTCS radiator (http://www.innovatek.de/contentServ/...hp?StoryID=767) (I cant say if its any good... but it is one darn nice piece of metal!).

The blocks are really low resistance blocks with wide tunnels and very few bends. However the radiator might be the biggest factor, since a big radiator might need a bigger pump.

However, my L30 was perfect for cooling my rig, so I guess any of the two models should replace fairly well.

Now, from your experiences, what would be the quiestest pump or pumps? Should I stay away from all 12v models and concentrate only in immersible pumps?

If the ikawi are the best, does anyone know where to buy them?

Thanks very much for any help you can give... I'm pretty desperate not to make the same error twice.

Regards to all,
Daniel Shane from Canada, The Great White North!

Eheim 1048 should do you well, very quiet pump if mounted on neoprene or foam, the 1250 too but is bigger. Most 12v pumps are not that quiet, the new Swiftech MCP350 is apparently quiet but I have never used one. If noise is the biggest concern, go 1048.

Iwaki RD-20/30 pumps are about in the Eheim 1250 league in terms of noise. Where the Eheim will rumble and vibrate though (even the 1048's will vibrate but are otherwise near silent), the Iwaki RD-20/30 doesn't really vibrate to any level that I could detect. Of course if you stick it straight on some wood or metal it will transmit, but even the smallest amount of foam stops that.

Eheim 1048's, even a pair of them, will be quieter so long as they aren't vibrating against something, but the RD-20/30 takes nothing to silence either to someone who's tried bricks and sandbags.

I know that there is a popular model, the eheim 1048 12v (example, from innovatek). Should I stay away from that and go with the submersible version?

Daniel

If you are really conscious about you money (read: a cheapskate like me) the eheim compact 1000 pump gets my recommendation. It does vibrate a bit and makes a low frequency humming, but placed inside a relatively isolating enclosure, it is unhearable And, yeah.. its something like 12$ a pump, they are submersible but conversion to inline is quite easy…

I have one of these and it's really good. Quieter than the 1046. Seems to provide more pressure than the 1048. Does still need a bit of foam underneath it. Works really well with the Swiftech 6000 water blocks. If you end up getting the 1046, 1048, or the Innovatek 12V 1046 (HPPS), consider the Innovatek AGB-O-Matic push-on reservoir. Turns the pump into a very slick hybrid submerged/inline.
You could also wait a month or so and see what kind of noise reports come back about the Laing DDC (Swiftech MCP 350 ?) See this thread. I'll be buying one to mate with the Storm I have here - unless noise reports are negative...
Anyway, note that the DDC is cheaper than the HPPC, has more pressure, more volume, and might be nearly as quiet. The pump body is smaller and it looks as though it'd be as reliable as an Eheim (which is saying quite a lot)