I recently bought a Hydor Koralia 3 from Drs. Foster and Smith a couple of weeks ago. I had heard a lot of good comments on this reef pump and wanted to try one for a while now. I needed a couple of things for my reef aquarium anyway so I decided to buy a Hydor Koralia 3 while I was at it.
My first impression on this pump was not a good one, It’s huge, The measurement on this pump is a little over five inches long not to mention that it was as round as my fist. So after finding a suitable place in my 46gallon that would hide the pump I plugged it into my wave maker. My red sea wavemaster pro kicks that pump on and “click click”, I knew right away that it was the new Koralia pump so I left the pump on and whenever the wavemaker would click it on the Koralia 3 would click. This wasn’t just a little click either it almost sounded like a mantis shrimp tapping on the shell of an unsuspecting snail.
I found a “quick” fix on Reefcentral that involves placing a small piece of airline tubing on the propeller shaft. It still clicked when the wavemaker clicked on but not as loud. Unfortunatly for me it was not good enough as my tank is right next to my bedroom and I absolutely need it to be dead quiet at nite. So i unplug the Koralia pump from the wavemaker and I plug it into the wall outlet.
I quickly learned after plugging it into the wall outlet how little the pump actually pushed water. I was surprised that the pump was hardly moving my green sinularia just a few inches away. I put my hand in front of the pump and it seemed that the flow was about right 850 gph as it was going to replace a pump that did about the same rate. The Koralia however is designed to disperse flow instead of giving it a “stream” flow.
I gave up on this pump and i sent it back to Drs. foster and smith. Not only was I disappointed that I couldn’t use it with my Red Sea wavemaker, I was disappointed in the size and the poor performance.