Drawing conclusions

The regulable electric pump is one of the most beautiful things that we can have in sump, for a lot of reasons. It’s priceless to be able to easily change the power for better adapting to your own aquarium. For example, when you have to change the water you can decrease the power of the pump in order to have less exchange aquarium-sump: in this way is not necessary to switch off the return pump. In fact, lowering the range of the return pump the level of the sump tends to rise while, in the aquarium, to decrease. Indeed there’s no risk to leave the pumps without water, taking it away from the aquarium. Moreover, from the point of view of the security, it’s better to have a pump with 24V than 220V. We hope that this intuition could be extended to all the pumps in aquarium.

Today the costs are in general higher for the pump with a low voltage, and the Waveline DC6000 can’t be defined as a economic pump. But considering its performances and its cost takes another look.

The page of the conclusions hasn’t been so full of material: we want to compare the pump with other pumps we’ve already measured.

First of all here’s the final chart with all the performances of the pump in the different power steps. There are reported hydraulic head, flow rate, consumption, energy efficiency and economic efficiency. The reference value is useful to compare this pump with others.

But even more interesting is the following chart where there are also the measured values of the other pumps, Eheim, Tunze, Sicce, Corallinea, that we have tested (as you can see in our reviews page), ordered by the pump reference value: the product of flow rate and hydraulic head. In this way we can have a meaningful comparison (the values in red of the Corallinea BQ5000 pump are estimated but not measured. They mightn’t be perfect, but we believe they are sufficiently acceptable for our comparison).

In this chart we’ve reported the values of some pump tested on DaniReef. Especially the last three pump at variable speed, the Tunze 1073.50, the Corallinea BQ5000 and the Waveline DC6000.

From the chart you can see that, from economic point of view (that is the obtained range per each euro), the Corallinea pump is always the more convenient. In regarding of the range per watt it’s convenient the Waveline DC6000. Even in the cost of the yearly electric energy excels the Waveline.

Relationship between the declared data

Let’s see now the closeness with the data declared by the home builder.

Hydraulic head

The measurement of the maximum head has a gap just over 10% higher than what declared.

Flow rate

As we saw in our previous reviews, almost no pump maintains its promises about the flow rate, and even the Waveline doesn’t make exceptions, even if the loss of 30% has not to be underestimated.

Energy Consumption

The energy consumption is almost perfectly coincident with the declared one.

Correspondence with the declared data

In the end we can add a value of the correspondence with the declared data for what concerns flow rate, head and consumption.

If you want to know if a certain pump suits you, you can read the article when we talk about the correct choice of the return pump, you can download our excel file and see if this pump guarantees that exchange aquarium-sump that you need.

Conclusions

The reference value of the Waveline DC6000 at its maximum power is 1.571.136 l*cm/s, where the declared reference value for the comparison is 2.640.000. Remember that the reference value consists in the area between the values of head and flow rate, at their maximum values. It’s the product between flow rate and hydraulic head.

There’s a sensible loss compared to the declared data, as we have just seen in the previous charts. But we have to consider the Waveline DC6000 pump in its real performances. In fact these values return us a pump in line with the competition (where the real values are quite far from the declared ones), an optimal technical efficiency (so a relationship between litres/watt very high) and a quite low consumption.

The price of the pump, 283 euro, isn’t cheap, but the low cost work could make it preferable to other solutions. With 283 euro we have a electric pump at 24V, with 11 steps of incremental power to be programmed, with the possibility to be stopped in order to feed fish and corals, and with very noticeable results. Moreover the pump is compatible with Apex computers, a resource of control that we wish it could be implemented by everyone.

The plastic construction is well made, solid and tough. The pump is imported and provided by AGP, that will take care for the guarantee for two years.

PRO

Optimal performances even if lower than the declared ones
Direct current pump 24V
Adjustable pump on 11 incremental power steps
High technical efficiency
Low cost of work
Well built
Compatibility with APEX computer

CONTRO

Measured flow rate significantly lower than the declared values

Quality construction
Quality
Relationship Quality Price

.

Thanks to AGP for providing us the pump for our tests.