How do I reduce water pump vibration in my house?

[Pinkey]

I love the sound of water. It soothes and relaxes me. My home sounds like a spa with a babbling brook in it. All this makes me happy. What I find distracting is the electrical hum of, well, anything. Nature doesn't hum like my aquarium.

I'm about to upgrade my 125g to a 180g because I found a deal on CL I couldn't pass up. I'll be building a new stand from scratch which means there are no limits to my new configuration. Anything is possible when it comes to deadening pump noise. What has worked for you? What would you try if you were going to build a new stand?

I currently have a Pondmaster Mag 9.5 pumping to a height of about 7' for 610 gph


The front panel of the stand is removable. The next stand will have removeable panels as well. It currently contains an FX6. The white tubes are 4" PVC pipes with loads of bio media. The FX6 is configured purely as mechanical filtration. The 125g tank on the right is plumbed to this system as well and drains onto the primary tank.

Currently, the Mag 9.5 is in the right corner of the tank with the intake just below water surface. In case of terrible disaster, the pump would burn up after pumping only 20 +/- gallons onto the floor. The pump attaches to the PVC apparatus through about a foot of vinyl tubing in an effort to reduce vibration. I have chunks of sponge between the pump and the walls of the tank which help. A problem is the pump is technically hanging from this whole thing and tends to vibrate the whole upward tube. It's subtle but reverberates in a few odd places in the house and gets loud from time to time.



In a perfect world, I'd add a sump reservoir under the new tank so I could hide this pump from view while maintaining a constant water level in this tank. A minor gripe about my current setup is the water level bounces up to two inches. I add about 3 gallons of water per day to replace evaporation and plant consumption. I haven't done a water change for water quality in several years. The sump reservoir would allow both tanks to maintain water levels without fluctuation. A possible downside of a sump is the water head would move to about 10' from the pump reducing the gph to 450 which is still plenty since these tanks have additional filtration and a very light bio load.

Anyway, please send advice or photos of what has worked for you to reduce pump vibration.
Thanks.

 

[Pinkey]

OK. Not quite enough action to earn the little flame icon. I'll go with a good horror story instead. I had a 125g tank on a stand I built. The stand was a pretty standard 2x4 construction with plywood surfaces. It was a brick. I figured I'd never move the thing so this was the tank I'd build all PVC piping for the pump and the return. The pipe fit snugly between the 1,500lb tank and the wall. I did all sorts of maneuvering to glue the thing together in some pretty impossible places.

It was great until I turned it on. The entire stand functioned like the sound board in a guitar. My house has an open floor plan for the main level. The pump, amplified by the stand, was loud in the kitchen, dining room, and living room. We had to turn up the TV to hear it. The pipe, nicely squeezed against an interior wall, also vibrated the rest of the entire house. It was a quiet vibration once I was a room or two away but the whole house had a gentle hum to it. It lasted only a week before I sawed the whole darn thing apart and put in cheap vinyl tubing from the hardware store.

 

[fishorama]

Oh crap, this is almost like my dream/nightmare of wonderful tanks. Awesome tank! Amazing wall vines! But I don't know enough about flow & your pumps & pipes to even guess at an answer. Pack everything in coarse Poret foam to slow it down? It comes in a few densities, maybe ask the Swiss Tropical people (Poret foam co.)?

I started to say, several days ago, to answer you. But I've got nothing except admiration for your skills...They are great!!

If I ever need to travel through Denver & I have a longer layover, I may have to invite myself over for a look!

 

[Pinkey]

Oh crap, this is almost like my dream/nightmare of wonderful tanks. Awesome tank! Amazing wall vines! But I don't know enough about flow & your pumps & pipes to even guess at an answer. Pack everything in coarse Poret foam to slow it down? It comes in a few densities, maybe ask the Swiss Tropical people (Poret foam co.)?

I started to say, several days ago, to answer you. But I've got nothing except admiration for your skills...They are great!!

If I ever need to travel through Denver & I have a longer layover, I may have to invite myself over for a look!

I'd be happy to have you. It's been a funny journey. In the 90's I built a fish room in my basement. I've done a couple of indoor ponds and countless tanks since then. The current balance that works for both me and my wife is two tanks. It doesn't seem to matter how big those tanks are but I think my stories of fish rooms scared her a little. Only having two tanks means I can give each of them a lot more attention than ever before. I don't need lights for 20 tanks, I need only one good light (the second tank is in front of a window and whatever grows grows. Whatever doesn't, goes away. As proud of these as I am, two tanks costs a lot less than 20. Replying to you now, I'm thinking this through a bit differently. I like how a writing prompt from someone else has the ability to spark unique trains of thought. The tank with the pump is over an unfinished storage room in the basement. I could put the pump in that room and run tubing through the ceiling/floor. I don't want to get a more powerful pump to allow for the increased distance between the pump and the waterfall head but. . .I wouldn't actually need to. The water surface level will stay the same meaning, in theory, there would be little change in gph. In theory, I could put a 100 gph pump a mile underwater and it would still pump nearly 100gph just above the surface since its only actually lifting the water about a foot. Friction within the pipes would cause a lot of drag but that's not much of an issue in my real-life scenario. Removing the pump, as long as I am able to isolate most of the vibration, would solve much of the problem. In its current configuration, there is only so much I can do. Hmm. I don't love the idea of drilling holes between levels of my house but I'm actually considering it now. Thanks for the prompt.

 

[fishorama]

Maybe acoustic foam or tiles/panels people use in music rooms to keep the sound down? Might work just on the ceiling of the storage room? Some looks like egg crate, others are different. Might be expensive if the room is large. Long ago my husband had semipro musician friends that did that in home studios. It might depend on the type of sound waves to dampen. Some is to prevent the echo effect & drum boom...& that's about all I know...not sure how pump vibration would figure in.

 

[dougall]

I'm struggling to picture this if you out the pump into the basement;

I'm not sure of your layout if you are not going to have an increase in head pressure unless it's done sort of closed loop.. which makes me unsure the reason for a sump?

If things are working now except for the water level, I would maybe consider adding a water reservoir under the tank and use an automatic top off system to the tank where water level is an issue.

 

[fishorama]

Oh. I thought it was pump vibration noise not pump head pressure that's the problem. Pinkey could boost up the basement pump to almost ceiling high & it would almost be the same as on the floor of the tank floor level by a foot or so.

Maybe I'm the 1 who doesn't understand? It wouldn't be the 1st time...

 

[dougall]

There are lots of issues here, hence my confusion.

If it's gonna stay as a mag 9.5, maximum head pressure tops out at(I think) 13 feet or so where you are barely left with a trickle of water.

If the purpose is to add a sump because of water level in the main tank, I'm not sure how it will be plumbed... But having the sump in the basement will mean too much vertical distance even if the sump is on stilts or the height of the room. The pump is going to have to move the water from the sump to the top of the waterfall... The whole distance needs to be taken into account, i.e. the distance from where the top of the water is that you are pumping from, not just the distance from the pump

I'm not sure that there's a good way to lessen the noise as it's either going to mean replacing the pump or having it in some sort of configuration where noise isn't going to be transmitted, so having flexible joints in the tubing, moving rubber between the pump and the tank and that sort of thing.

 

[fishorama]

Obviously you understand more of the issues than I do. I bow to your knowledge & experiences. You know I'm often confused...but willing to learn...& brainstorm

 

[dougall]

I'm not an expert by any means!

Pinky... - just to rule it out I would make sure the impeller is clean and intact, and that the pump is clean too.. just in case any sort of imbalance is a big source of the noise too.