Rio Pumps are junk... throw yours out before its too late.

[sedgro]

I never thought mine would fail either. It was 2 years old and had worked reliably as a wave maker. It was a Rio 2100 and packed quite a punch.
Then this morning I noticed a couple of my xenias and one acropora had bleached. I couldn't figure out what was wrong... and everything else looked good. I smelled an odd odor around my tank- sort of like diesel fuel and an electrical fire. Then, I noticed that my Rio wasn't working. It smoked as I took it out of the tank and smelled foul. Part of the epoxy encasing the motor had eroded and leached God only knows what into my tank.
Seems that just when things are going there best something always breaks or fails. Murphy's Law I guess.
So after a 35 gallon water change (125 gal tank), two Polyfilters and a fresh bag of Kent Carbon I'll keep my fingers crossed and pray that I lose nothing else.

Finally, its not that the pump failed... it how it failed. You would think anything meant to work under water would have some king of built in fuse in the case of a short. Oh, well. I am certainly done with Rio/Taam.

John

[jmick01]

Does anybody know of a way(short of replacing it) how to cure this internal pump fire. I too have rio's 3100 and a 1700. Just as stated above no problems ever. They are approximately 3 years old and just replaced the impellers on them .

JMM

------------------
Remember Fish are alive when we get them, lets keep it that way!!!

[SPASSE]

Hi All,

The RIO problem with the larger RIO pumps is related to two issues:

1 The coil runs hot and depending on individual manufacturing variances, the epoxy seal cracks and allows coil water contact.

2 The non-UL versions of the pumps lack a thermal cutoff device.

Unfortunately, there is probably no indication of imminent failure.

The RIO 2500 seems to be most prone to this kind of failure.

Regards,

Scott

------------------
The definition of an expert is a washed-up drip under pressure.
You can see my reeftank at http://www.homestead.com/spasse/

[jmick01]

SPASSE,
Thanks for the info. I will be checking out my rio's tomorrow.

JMM

------------------
Remember Fish are alive when we get them, lets keep it that way!!!

[jmick01]

I just emailed rio/taam. We will see what kind of response I can get.

JMM

------------------
Remember Fish are alive when we get them, lets keep it that way!!!

[naser]

rios being so cheap and as far as the rest go pretty cool running.... but hey i think after three years you should just replace them for fun. ninong????? is the ul rio safer? im looking into mags but living in cali the watts is my big dilema. heat too cause when its hot ill use more watts cooling,,, just curiuos.

[Firefish]

I have a diff.theory,people who use the rio's(me included)
as a wave pump need to understand that the pump dose'nt always turn on when it gets shut off,it gets stuck,no water goes through to keep it cool and it burns up...I've found that by cleaning them on a monthly basis and not tightening the impellla housing cap too much,they wont get stuck.All I've ever had was rio pumps (1700 - 2500)for many years and I've never realy had any problems with them.Saying everybody should throw out their rio pumps because he or she had a melt down (caused by lack of maintenance or ???)would be like saying everybody should junk their Ford because my A.O.D tranny keeps blowing...

------------------
"It's better to have a hen tomorrow then an egg today."

[naser]

i love rios personally....cheap... and nice on the power bill.
everyone will agree they dont allways work all the time..but i believe that it says right on the pump not to use as a wave device!

[sedgro]

As I said, its not that my pump failed, its HOW it failed.

Firefish - if your Ford blew its transmission so that it destroyed your car would you go out and buy another one? (I don't mean this in any antagonistic way) I expect cars, TVs, electric tooth brushes and so on to fail. Its how they do it that matters.

If I remember my engineering correctly, most electrical devices are usually designed to fail in a less destructive way (when they are being used in theire intended fashion). Short=blown fuse.

As I watch one of my large Acros that has been growing for over two years wilt I can assure you that I will never buy another Taam product.

And while I agree that Rio pumps are cheap, that doesn't mean that quality should suffer. And the 2100 isn't really that cheap. Sure you can get it for ~$36-40 online, but if you buy it locally you are looking at $60+. How cheap is that?

I went back and looked at the case of my 2100 and (maybe because it is older) it says nothing about not being used as a wavemaker. The cycle was long anyway (5 min on, 5 min off). And I kept it clean too (new impellar last month).

I have had plenty of powerheads fail over the years. This is the first to fail like this.

Sorry, I guess my subject line was too inflammatory- witten in a fit of anger. Just wanted to warn people. My point was that I never thought it would happen to me either.
Just be careful... we invest a lot of time and money in our tanks. There's nothing worse ("reefwise") than watching a prized coral die.

John

[naser]

well sorry for the loss of the acro... id hate that to.. i think the new ul listed rios. are 10 bucks more. and are grounded and i think fuse..not sure about the fused.. the new ones these days have a tag on the cord that say "do not run pump on any wave making device" thats right off my rio. ive had the props lock up because of calicuim but never a melt down... didnt mean to rub you the wrong way i just thought all rios had that tag on them!

[Firefish]

Sedgro,the point is...there are many reasons why a pump or any piece of equipment may fail and yes,I would replace the tranny with the same one.Who knows what the other one went through or what kind of internal defects are in it.Any one who builds computers knows that 2 out of every 10 hard drives fail because of factory defects and just because of that fact dose not mean you shouldnt buy the same HD.Your RIO blew,along with many others that may have had factory defects or because of poor maintenance,and because yours blew for some unknown reason dosnt mean that mine will.Many people complain about the resin cracking and what not,regular maintenance and inspections of your equipment might prevent that.This is not a Flame,I just think people should'nt tell others to just throw away their equipment because they had a bad experience with it,when theirs are and continue to work just fine.With this kind of reasoning you should just say "Every body get rid of your Tangs,they're prone to ick and mine just died"...
Also,Ive had a rio 2500 going for 3 years strong,still pushing water like it was new...
------------------
"It's better to have a hen tomorrow then an egg today."

[This message has been edited by Firefish (edited 03-29-2001).]

[SEABUZZ]

i hear alot of different opinions on rios. come on. its a 30-50 dollar pump running 24/7 365 days a year. how long do you think a pump should last. do they always pollute the tank when they die. are there any other submergible pumps that are guranteed not to foul the tank.

[Ninong]

Hi SEABUZZ ~

No, they do not always pollute the tank when they fail. The Rio failures that have the potential to wipe out all the livestock in the tank involve cracking of the epoxy at the point where the cord attaches to the housing. Might be caused by overheating on the inside of the pump or it might simply be a case where the plastic housing cracked where the cord enters, allowing saltwater to enter and mix with the copper windings.

There are two potential disasters here (to say nothing of the possibility of electric shock) -- (1) The copper can leach into the saltwater, killing all of the invertebrates in short order, (2) The plastic & epoxy can melt if subjected to overheating causing an oily slick in the tank that can wipe out everything living in the tank in short order.

Again, the only Rio pumps that have been reported to fail in this particular fashion are the non-UL listed ones, and usually the 2100 and 2500 models. However, Rio has produced very, very few UL listed pumps. A search of the boards will discover that Rio pumps are the only ones reported to fail in this manner... probably because most other pumps have thermal cutoffs.

Other pumps fail, but they don't usually melt down in the tank recreating the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Ninong [img]/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

P.S. - Moving to Tanks, Filtration & Basic Equipment forum.

------------------
Irrational Exuberance!

[Mobious]

In the past 4 years I have had 3 RIOs... 1 2100 and 2 2500.
My 2100 failed after 4 years of service. I think the only reason it failed was I let the water level get so low alot, making the rio run on air...
IMO, RIOs are not good as wavemakers but they are good for skimmers and return pumps.If you keep them under water and clean them regularly they will last several years, like mine...

[jmick01]

Here is my opinion on RIO/TAAM. I finally got a hold of someone @ RIO today around 3pm. Only a couple of people speak english around there apparently. The man I spoke to told me that any rio pump 2 years and older could possibly not have the thermal cut off, but that they order the pumps from their manufacturer and assume that they do. He then explained that most people that have contacted him about this problem were very un easy to deal with and said just as the author of this post did that "RIO's suck". I told him flat out that i was very sure mine were older than 2 years and that they were not ruined, but my concern was for the fututre of my pumps and the possibility of the malfunction that might occur. I also asked him to tell me why they make pumps that are not "UL" approved, and his response was that they do. The only problem is they only come in about 5 models and have to be special ordered. He also stated that the lfs are unwilling to pay the extra charge for the ul approved models and thus dont carry them. I asked him what they were going to do about me as a rio customer and my pumps. This company is not stating that they are perfect, but that if you have a pump that malfunctioned to contact them and they will work with you to find a solution to the problem. Oh yeah I also did a little looking @ my lfs and 3/4 of the pumps on the shelves were not ul approved. This included some rio, aquarium systems, hagen and the power sweep from zoo med. Any ways I am not saying that this is my favorite company, but they have definately made me a satisfied rio pump owner.

Sincerely
JMM

------------------
Remember Fish are alive when we get them, lets keep it that way!!!

[This message has been edited by jmick01 (edited 03-30-2001).]

[jmick01]

Also in cojunction to moboius. Directly on rio's package it states do not use on any wavemaking device.


JMM

------------------
Remember Fish are alive when we get them, lets keep it that way!!!

[wgscott]

There was a fairly comprehensive survey about rio pumps at reefs.org about 6 or so months ago. Anyway it seems like the 2100 and those of similar size are the worst. They don't have oil, but the epoxy cracks around where the cord goes in and melts and leaches toxic plasticides or something. Anyway, they are clearly much worse than other pumps, but there are reported failures of other pumps too. Rios by and large are the only ones that fail catastrophically.

One thing I always like to ask is if the rio that failed catastrophically was plugged into a circuit with a GFCI and a grounding probe in the tank. My guess is with both of those, you will trip the circuit long before the failure becomes a catastrophe. If someone has a counter-example, please let me know.

I have rios on my skimmers. I thought of replacing with maxijets and wrote to CPR about this. To make a long story short they said they only had one report of a rio 600 failing on their Backpack IIs and that they simply worked better in terms of the venturi, etc, than maxijets and other pumps. In short they convinced me not to replace them. The maxijet 1200 incidently runs MUCH hotter than the rio 600, even though it is less effective. Since it costs about $15 to replace, I just put a new one on each year. I give them a year, and then chuck them. It seems like the best compromise.

[jmick01]

wgscott,
I believe You are correct on running a gfci and it catching the problem before the disaster occurs. Right on the rio operating instructions it states that you need to run a gfci to operate this pump(rio). But as i stated earlier the manufacturer said that they indeed have heard about the problem, but have had very few people actually contact rio about the problem. In other words if you have a pump that went bad contact them and I am quite sure they will find a solution to your problem...

JMM

------------------
Remember Fish are alive when we get them, lets keep it that way!!!

[junkzoo]

a reply to WGSCOTT's prior post, i got my Knop hang on back skimmer from PA with a rio, after two rio's and a few new inmpellers, i talk to Jason at Premium Aquatics, pertaining to what can i use instead ot rio's .he recomended the Maxi-jet 1200 with venturi kit , got one, after normal "break-in " time and fine tuning on the air intake (not able to do with rio's) skimmer works GREAT (better, IMO)and don't have to worry about the small ,short tubing clogging up on the rio,and goofing up the operation of skimmer,(got to where i did this as a preventive measure , after a few cup "overflows" you learn.IMO, so far i love the maxi-jet,and can "tune it"to skim how ever i want to dry/slow or faster/wet.just my 2 cents,,,,,[img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]