deep blue Triton3, 3rd failure. FML

[james1990]

:banghead::banghead::banghead:

I just blew my third Triton 3 in a matter of 3 weeks and I cant figure out why this is happening. I figured I would post here to see is this is a common occurrence for this pump.

It runs perfectly fine but when I unplug it to feed or do maintenance, it makes a humming and jarring noise when plugged back in. After the first one blew I thought maybe my reefkeeper PC4 was bad but The next two I had plugged into its own outlet. There are no air bubbles and I am using the pumps correctly. I have a ball valve about 10' from the pump that controls it.

WHAT COULD BE HAPPENING?! I feel horrible going back to aquarium village and making it their problem. They were already so nice to give me 3 replacements.

:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

 

[KathyC]

I assume you are using this as your return pump?
If so, before you feed you might want to only turn off whatever powerheads you have in your DT, rather than turning off your return pump.

Where is the ball valve placed..before the pump or after?

 

[james1990]

thanks Kathy, I pm'd you.

I moved my heater hopefully it was the cause of the failure. And rather than turning off the pump for feeding i will close the ball valve 90% and turn off my mp10.

hopefully anyone else running into a Triton issue will find this useful. I will post back if it doesnt work!

 

[Imbarrie]

A triton 3 powered my 75 for over a year with zero problems. I even had a ball valve downstream closed about 20%. I also unplugged this for nightly feeding a with no problems on start up.
Maybe it is electrical in nature.

 

[james1990]

I thought it could be an electrical issue, so with the 3rd repalcment I plugged it into its own surge protector on a seporate outlet from my other equipment. And it still happened.

its frustrating because everyone has great experience with them yet I blow up 3. lol

 

[REEFSTA]

i have a triton 5 on my 75g 0 problems but only had for a few weeks
my friend has T5 on his 125 0 problems
and my other buddy has a T4 on his 65 0 problems

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

 

[strgazr27]

Sounds like a bad batch of pumps if you are getting them from the same place. How are they failing? No power up or no moving water? I've used nothing but Tritons. Excellent pumps. The ball valve is on the output side correct? If not and its on the input side that is likely your problem.

 

[mdevera15]

my triton 4 did that after a while. every time i would turn it off it would not restart. the only way i could restart the pump now is if i unplug it, lift it above the water and then plug it in. wait for it to start up and then put it back under water.. works every time.

i have no idea y after a while they fail to restart like that. im just glad i figured out how to do it. hopefully nothing else goes wrong.



mine is on a reefkeeper lite too.. not sure if that's causing the problem..

hope this helps.

 

[noelskii]

i've had my triton 4 for about 3 months now, so far so good.

 

[KathyC]

my triton 4 did that after a while. every time i would turn it off it would not restart. the only way i could restart the pump now is if i unplug it, lift it above the water and then plug it in. wait for it to start up and then put it back under water.. works every time.

i have no idea y after a while they fail to restart like that. im just glad i figured out how to do it. hopefully nothing else goes wrong.



mine is on a reefkeeper lite too.. not sure if that's causing the problem..

hope this helps.

Interesting.

When the OP posted this:

thanks Kathy, I pm'd you.

I moved my heater hopefully it was the cause of the failure. And rather than turning off the pump for feeding i will close the ball valve 90% and turn off my mp10.

hopefully anyone else running into a Triton issue will find this useful. I will post back if it doesnt work!

I had PM'd him some info that I found that these particular pumps sometimes do not restart when they are hot, and being located near a heater in the sump if often found to be the cause of a restart failure.

Interesting in that Mdevera is lifting his out of the water before it will restart - that action might be helping the pump cool off enough to start.

It would be good to know if our OP has had an more on-going issues since he moved his heater away from the pump?

 

[mdevera15]

Interesting.

When the OP posted this:


I had PM'd him some info that I found that these particular pumps sometimes do not restart when they are hot, and being located near a heater in the sump if often found to be the cause of a restart failure.

Interesting in that Mdevera is lifting his out of the water before it will restart - that action might be helping the pump cool off enough to start.

It would be good to know if our OP has had an more on-going issues since he moved his heater away from the pump?

heat could be the case. my heater is located in corner over flow in the display tank tho, not in the sump. whatever works i guess hehe

 

[james1990]

thanks Kathy for staying on top of me on this subject. I let it slip my mind.

So, Kathy showed me some info that suggested I move my heater as the pump could be getting hot and causing the problem. This made sense to me as mine was almost touching my heater.

@mdevera15- that also worked for me once or twice, but the next time i turned off the pump it would stop working again, after a few times it wouldnt restart.

Also, after speaking to a friend over at my LFS, he suggested that I might be turning off the pump too much. I thought turning it off for feeding and maintenance was normal, but it made sense that it puts stress on the pump.

I cannot comment as to moving the heater fixed the issue or not turning off the pump much at all fixed it. For feeding I close the ball valve 90% This makes me nervous but it seems to work better. Makes water changes a B!tch too.

 

[mdevera15]

@mdevera15- that also worked for me once or twice, but the next time i turned off the pump it would stop working again, after a few times it wouldnt restart.

Everytime i turn the pump off, i have to lift it out of the water to restart it now. it will never turn on by itself if the pump is submerged. i was providing a solution to get the pump restarted, but it wont get it working flawlessly again. hehe..

u dont have to turn off the return pump when feeding. i dont.. if u want to just turn off your circlulation pumps in the display tank. put a lil food in at a time and as your fish finish it, add more if you want to. i think the reason u are turning off your return pump is that you want to limit the amount of uneaten food going into your sump right?

 

[james1990]

Yes it's to limit the food going into the sump. It's hard to prevent that when I have to spot feed my mandarin. The small food gets washed out quickly.

Well due to the storm the 4th triton 3 pump blew on me once again.

This time it only took 3 cycles of turning off the pump to blow. Each of the 3 times I had to take the pump out of the water to get it started again. This created a HUGE mess and a HUGE headache during hurricane sandy.

I replaced the pump with the cheaper RIO 1700 and so far it's working better than the triton3 ever did! And it's quieter. I can turn the rio on and off no problem.

I really gave the triton a far shot. In the unlikely event that I happened to go through an entire defective shipment of pumps I will take it back but I

HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND THE TRITON 3.

 

[noelskii]

that's crazy. try the triton 4 that's what I have and I have no problems with it.