Impeller #1 with Cracked Magnet

During November 2008 I noticed some salt creep build up around the drain plug on the bottom of the skimmer. Attempting to clean this resulted in significant water escaping around the seal. I had to immediately shutdown the skimmer and remove as much of the 8 gallons of water it hold before it all spilled on the floor. The uni-seal was no longer flexible and no longer made a good seal.

While working on the skimmer I took the recirculation pumps apart for standard maintenance and found that the magnet on the impeller had split!

Impeller #2 with Cracked Magnet

To make matters worse, the second impeller magnet had also split - but not as bad.

Not only did I need to replace seals but now I had to replace the impellers as well. This repair job was getting expensive!

I talked to Jeff at EuroReef to talk about the issue and apparently this is not all that uncommon. Unfortunately you can't just purchase a replacement magnet but you must purchase a new assembly as each individual assembly has to be hand balanced and tested -- there is that much variance in the parts.

Each of the impellers where $55 to replace and $5 for the new seal and $27 for FedEx shipping.

New replacement impeller

This is one of the new replacement impellers which is slightly different than the older impellers it replaced. The spokes are slightly different and a bit more flexible than the older ones.