Maintaining your Mag-Drive Pump
In the last few years, many of us have switched over from our old energy-hog seal-leaking submersible pumps to the newer, much more energy-efficient and often-times cheaper Magnetic drive pumps (think Aquascape’s Aquasurge for waterfall pumps from 2,000 to 7,000 gph andUltra Pump for 350 – 2,000 gph).
These pumps require different maintenance procedures than the old pumps. If you have or had one of the older Aquascape Pro Pumps or Tsurumi pumps and you took them out of your pond in the winter, you were supposed to store them in a bucket of water or sink them to the bottom of your pond below the freeze level (probably half of you did not know this and failed to keep them wet causing them to leak and short out prematurely). This kept the seals wet as the seals tended to crack if allowed to dry out for extended periods of time.
Also the Tsurumi pumps required maintenance to change the oil periodically (which few of us did).
If the old pumps shorted out due to the water leaking through the seals, in order to try and fix the pump, you first had to remove the seals prior to fixing the motor. Seal kits generally cost about $85 and then you needed to fix the problem with the pump. As a result, it was very costly to try to fix one of the older style waterfall pumps.
The magnetic-drive pumpos are much simpler with fewer moving parts. Dave Kelly, the Aquascape tech Guru, shows us in this video how to properly maintain a Mag-drive pump. He also demonstrates how to replace the impeller assembly
Posted on: Saturday, July 24th, 2010 at 9:58 am 
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Very informative. I wish I would have known this before I wasted multiple submersible pumps. Thank you.
August 12th, 2010 at 6:34 pmThanks for the great advice and information. You really feel these pumps have a substantial difference huh Perhaps I will have to read more about them and try one out for myself. I have had a serious of problems with my pond pumps and have begun to grow very frustrated. Thanks for the great video.
September 1st, 2010 at 8:20 pmThe Aquasurges have been nearly flawless..very few have not made the trhee year warranty..and the energy-efficiency is awesome.
September 6th, 2010 at 7:08 pm