Maxijet 600 or 1200, or does it matter?

[Hal1]

Is there such a thing as wasting gph when mixing salt? I'm thinking about a maxijet 600 to circulate between 20 and 30 gallons of saltwater in a rubbermaid type container or garbage can. The 1200 is not much more dollar wise, but has a lot more flow. Does it help?

I'm also going to throw it in my tank after setup when I put in my UNcured live rock. And possibly use it down the road if I find I need extra circulation (I'll have 1500 gph flowing through 2 seaswirls on a 150gal tank, not including the powerhead). Although the last is unlikely as the reason I got the seaswirls is to avoid having powerheads in the tank.

I know the difference is only about 2 bucks, so why am I wasting your and my time?

 

[NoriMuncher]

Dunno. I read that the power consumption jumps greatly going from the 900 to the 1200 - 1200 is much less efficient (more watts per gph). I went with 900's in my tank for that reason.

 

[JohnD]

Nori is absolutely right about the power consumption. The maxijet 900 burns about 10 watts, whereas the maxijet 1200 burns 20 watts.

As for me, I run an old Aquaclear 201 to make up my saltwater. No, it is not powerful, but it let it run for a couple of days to really mix and age the water.

HTH

 

[ReefMole]

I'm by far no expert (3 weeks into assembling my saltwater/reef setup) but do have SOME experience with both the MJ600 and MJ1200.
I used both powerheads lastnight to mix my salt, mixing a 5 gal bucket at a time. The MJ1200 is MUCH more powerful than the 600. The 600 is a good pump and will be great for circulation in my 40 gallon tank; it also worked great for circulation when mixing in the 5 gallon bucket. It worked even better though, when I added the 1200 and used both!
For the extra $2 I'd definitely go with the 1200...especially if you're mixing in a garbage can. I think the 600 would be grossly underpowered but the 1200 would probably do fine. That's my 2 cents...and it's not worth much more than that, yet.

 

[myreef]

Maxijet powerheads are on sale at www.petwhse.com The 1200 is $14.97.

I use a 1200 to mix my salt. As was said ina garbage can, it is much better than the smaller PH's.