I'd imagine that most of you know this, but Marineland sells this small powerhead as a 3 in 1 pump 
owerhead/water circulator/ utility pump....it CAN be used as a utility pump, but even the directions that come with it show a diagram of it being used externally to suck water out the aquarium and back into the tank.
Now being that i needed a small utility pump, and I'm impatient sometimes, I went to my lps, and purchased one of these. IT CANNOT BE USED EXTERNALLY. Despite their instructions/diagram.....for one.......i had 3 inches of tubing trying to suck in the water and it just wasn't happening......and more importantly, the swivel head on the impeller is not water tight at all, this can be observed by when you submerge the pump, air bubbles leak out around the swivel, so if it's external it just sucks air around the swivel part and your pump will burn up. There is no way to use it externally, unless maybe you siliconed the swivel, but who wants to modify something supposedly designed to do a certain job.
Placing the pump itself in the aquarium was out of the question since all my equipment is hid, all i needed was a super slow pump to move water to an external canister and it needed to be external. Went with an aqualifter instead.
I know most of you guys probably laugh about this b/c its a cheap non powerful pump, or you already knew, but for someone on a budget needing a cheap non powerful external pump, the Maxi Jet Pro 400 is not the way to go. Works fine as a water circulator, and powerhead, but as a utility pump it CANNOT BE USED EXTERNALLY. Works fine moving water submerged though.
Hope that helps someone out.
owerhead/water circulator/ utility pump....it CAN be used as a utility pump, but even the directions that come with it show a diagram of it being used externally to suck water out the aquarium and back into the tank.Now being that i needed a small utility pump, and I'm impatient sometimes, I went to my lps, and purchased one of these. IT CANNOT BE USED EXTERNALLY. Despite their instructions/diagram.....for one.......i had 3 inches of tubing trying to suck in the water and it just wasn't happening......and more importantly, the swivel head on the impeller is not water tight at all, this can be observed by when you submerge the pump, air bubbles leak out around the swivel, so if it's external it just sucks air around the swivel part and your pump will burn up. There is no way to use it externally, unless maybe you siliconed the swivel, but who wants to modify something supposedly designed to do a certain job.
Placing the pump itself in the aquarium was out of the question since all my equipment is hid, all i needed was a super slow pump to move water to an external canister and it needed to be external. Went with an aqualifter instead.
I know most of you guys probably laugh about this b/c its a cheap non powerful pump, or you already knew, but for someone on a budget needing a cheap non powerful external pump, the Maxi Jet Pro 400 is not the way to go. Works fine as a water circulator, and powerhead, but as a utility pump it CANNOT BE USED EXTERNALLY. Works fine moving water submerged though.
Hope that helps someone out.
