SICCE Syncra Pump Review

[Caesra]

I have had a few of these pumps for about a little under a year now and I know some people were looking at them for use. So I thought I would give a review.

First off, I have the 4.0 model, both pumps. I will admit when installed they were insanely quiet and pushed a pretty good volume at my head height of 5 feet. I have the pump supplying a linked system and it is split 4 ways between the tanks. So as I said, does a pretty good job at pushing water and it was totally quiet.

To my disappointment, the issue I found was that over time, the pump got louder and pushed slightly less water. I routinely clean my pumps, powerheads, etc... about every 6 weeks. After cleaning they were still just as loud with no real change in flow output. If I played with them I could maybe get them to be a little bit quieter, but still dumfounded as to why.

When I decided to order my second 4.0 (mostly due to how quiet the first one was when I ordered it), I installed it and was equally as impressed. Over time it developed the same issue. At about 2-3 months of use I removed the second pump because I was changing my outlet configurations. This pump sat, mostly unused during the next 6 months or so.

Recently I decided to really dig into why this pump was getting so loud. So i tore it apart during maintenance and really looked at it.

The issue appears to be that the impeller drive becomes scarred. This may be due to me using sugar fine sand, but regardless the pump had noticable scars in the shaft. I took a look at the second pump that was being unused, but had developed the same noise during use. It too was pretty scarred up.

I took some sand paper and lightly sanded one of the shafts and replaced it. There was a noticable drop in the sound output, but it was still there. The body of the pump did not appear to be damaged like the shaft.

So in final review I will say these things:

Pros:
* decent price for the performance
* virtually silent when new

Cons:
* Shafts do not hold up to use (may be due to sugar fine sand)..but be prepared to replace shafts pretty often.
* Center shaft is made of ceramic, be very careful with them. I shattered one with very little pressure removing during maintenance.

Hope it helps.

[rtparty]

Thanks for that review.

I am currently looking at getting a new tank and want a SILENT return pump and these seem to be the best.

In my research I have found that the 3.0 models and lower are extremely quiet and stay that way. It is the higher models, such as yours, that tend to get louder with time.

I am still considering the model 1.5 for my upgrade.