Peristaltic pump recommendations?

[Armando]

My aqualifter died i need to replace it with something more reliable. Any experiences with the new Aquamedic peristaltic pumps? Any other ones that are reliable and not noisy?

 

[starrfish]

Armando, I'm probably the only one that has had trouble with the Aquamedic pumps, but I've gone through two of them in a matter of a few months and would not recommend them to anyone. They simply died - stopped turning. And the neoprene hose on one of them failed and I had a slight flood. I replaced them with aqualifter pumps months ago and haven't had any problems. For $10 each, just buy a few for backup.

 

[Armando]

wow two in a row is not a good record. are you using the aqualifter with kalk? the problem i'm running into is that kalk sometimes doesn't dissolve 100% and the aqualifter tubing is very small. i have another pump with a larger diameter tubing that works great, i wish i could find another one for sale.

 

[starrfish]

I use the aqualifters for kalk, calc and alk. I store my kalk in a 55g drum with an egg crate shelf about 4" from the bottom. I tie wrapped the tubing to the top of the egg crate shelf so it can't get into the thick kalk solution at the bottom of the barrel. I use the RO tubing. It's never clogged once.

 

[dedfish]

I use an aqualifter for kalk. I have a rigid piece of airline tubing that has a hook on one end, like a cane shape. I put this in the bucket hook side down so that as I pump kalk from the bucket the suction end of the airline is always about 2 inches from the bottom of the bucket.