Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello all,

Just a friendly warning about the PondOne O2 4000 model. My second one in less than 12 months has given up the ghost.

I am running 7 air stones on mine, so I know its not lack of air stones causing pressure on the diaphragms.

I have spoken to the shop which I purchased these from and they confirm the 4000 model is prone to breaking the diaphragms. They can get replacements for me at $20 each, but they also tell me they wont stock the 4000 any more and direct people to the 8000 model. They themselves run the 12000 model and have done for almost 2 years with out a hitch.

I am about to contact the Australian Importer - wonder if they will be helpful or not?

Totally agree Arbe, but to take it a little further -

A good friend of mine lost 140 odd fish to a pondone8000, it was only 3 weeks old. Broke the main shaft and he is still trying to get something out of them some 4 months later.

I went through 2 x pondone4000's in the first 8 months, they are a piece of crap.

Cant beat the old piston pump IMO.

my 2c

But... they're too noisey... I hear a chorus sing...

What about the turbine air pumps. From what I understand they pump out heaps of "low" pressure air with little noise.

On the positive side (so far) I have been running a 4000 continuously for 10 Months and not a problem. I even filled it with water when I put it on the ground (while connected and turned off) for 5 mins that turned in 45mins.
I run 4 of the big spectrum air stones so it is working flat out. It also has to push down about a metre under water when the tank is full.
Now that I have said that I'll go home and find it not working.

Charlie, are you saying their warranty is not worth a pinch of trout Sh...T? If they wont honour their warranty there something must be wrong with the product.

Very true, luckily mine is located at the back of the yard I suppose, and drowned out by the superpit....

I thought you used piston pumps Rupe?

Bugger.



About the same time frame as me Charlie.

I cant remember all the details, I did talk about it on a different thread some time ago but basically he had a 4000 that crapped out so he stepped up to the 8000 as summer was approaching and then 3 weeks later *bang...clunk...clunk...clunk* (or something of that nature) but at the time he was away over a weekend - got home to 140 floaters.

He called PondOne and first thing they said was "What did you do wrong?", the finger pionting went on for a couple of months and then no return emails etc, eventually he got the dept of fair trading involved and they said he may have a case to claim for the fish and the money on the food he spent on them in the year he had them aswell.

They did ask him to send the pump back which he did using the address from their website but it got lost, he later found out they had moved about a year or so ago, when he confronted them about it they denied the website having the wrong address so when he checked it they had already changed it to the correct address.

The last I spoke to him he said it was all getting too hard.

I should mention that there is probably many success stories out there for the 4 and 8000 series air pumps but you only have to be bitten once.

I've posted previously about my 8000.

First one died after 4 weeks....split diaphragms

Replacement died after over 30 degree day...split diaphragm and broken flapper

I now use the one age aquariums sells. The 60lpm one.

My 4000 is still going strong which means its outlasted 2 piston pumps. I would think 7 stones is not sufficient, I have about 12 on mine.

Blowers sound like a jet engine spooling up, have a high pitch whine you cant get rid of.

Go the Resun LP-40, mine ran for 4 years straight without ever having a problem, and the person I sold it to 2 years ago still hasnt had to pull it apart.

I now run an LP-100 on about 20 tanks plus both my AP tanks, 3 outlets in the 2kl tank and 2 in 500L, there are probably around 40 outlets coming from mine and most of them have ball valves reducing air pressure.

Any more than 7 and the volume of air coming out of the air stones was less than useless.

What is your configuration like? I have a 'backbone' of 16mm pipe with the air stones branching off where needed.

There is nothing in the instructions on how many or what type of airstones you must use.

In my view referring to a air stones is a bit like asking how long is a bit of string (answer is the sum of the 2 halves).

My spectrum air stones are 200 or 250 mm long. They have the capacity to put out considerably more air than a 2cm aquarium air stone. 7 of those would be more than the capacity of the 4000 or even the 8000.
Just my 2 bobs worth

PS my 4000 was making more noise this morning than usual.

How old is it Marc?