Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Can someone explain why there is such a difference in price between:

a) Hailea 60l/min airpump, which retails at around $88; and
b) Pondmax PA40 40l/min airpump, which retails at around $200?

Is it just build quality or is there a fundamental difference in the way each work that makes one last longer/work better than the other?

One is a piston type, the other a diaphragm type. Also is that price on the hailea from boys? If so, beware!

The hailea piston pumps from Boyu arent actually Hailea but they do a good job making the packaging look like it.

Just as an aside, I have heard that you can use the air injection pumps used in the automotive industry that they use to inject air into the exhaust stream as an anti-pollution aid. On some model cars these are 12 volt side stream type blowers and are possibly only fitted in new car markets where they are mandated. There may be other types such as piston pumps, I would guess but, I am not sure, I am going to check em out next time at an auto wrecker.

I just bought ael- cheep-o piston pump to drive my bio-filter and it is a serious piece of crap. Very disappointed with it. I pulled it apart first day it arrived, greased the piston, drilled some more inlet ports and expanded the originals and it's still crap. This pump claims 15 watts and I recon ten of those are going directly into heat.

I would like to stress that I did not source this pump from BYAP but from another web based distributor.

Yeah the genuine Hailea pumps are actually not that bad, I have several here that must be at least 7 yrs old and are still going strong.

Cool, thanks guys.

Are piston pumps less efficient or more noisy than the diaphragm ones? If diaphragms are significantly quieter then I'll pay more to keep the neighbours happy - otherwise I could save $100+ for more trout ...

Ended up getting the Pondmax one today, since it was in stock at my local pond store.