Tip of the Day – 4/18/2012

Have a noisy return pump that causing an annoying humming noise throughout your sump and the aquarium’s plumbing? Try sitting the pump on a piece of foam to get it quiet. If the return pump is external, virtually any soft material will suffice. You can use stryofoam, foam pads, cardboard, and anything else that will put some distance between hard surfaces. If the pump is submerged, as so many are these days, your options are obviously far more limited. A small piece of foam material works well, and many aquarium keepers even use filter pads and other soft filter material. By using products designed to clean the water, either manually or through some biochemical process, the pump will not only run quiet, but the tank might be a little cleaner. Just be sure to change the material out every so often to prevent issues.