Magi-Klean is a new acid-based pump cleaning solution from Hydor which was designed to help keep reef aquarium pumps and equipment in top working order. Venturis clog, impellers get dirty and the housing and intakes of our water pumps absolutely need to be cleaned on a regular basis in order to get maximum performance and maximum longevity from these hard-working aquarium equipment parts. Hydor gave us a preview sample of the Magi-Klean to try out and see what we thought.
We mixed up a batch of Magi-Klean and tried it out on several aquarium parts which were all showing different symptoms of biological and chemical fouling. An AquaMedic Ocean Prop 15000 had heavy precipitation from mixing new saltwater, a maxijet was covered in small white tubeworms and one of the penductors was nearly covered on every surface with coralline algae. The directions for Magi-Klean suggest a 2-hr soak but we just went ahead and soaked the equipment overnight anyway. After the soak all of the equipment was lightly soaked and only the penductor required a light hand rubbing to remove the decalcified coralline algae.
As you can see in the image above, the Magi-Klean worked extremely well. Sometimes vinegar just takes too long and other times muriatic acid is just nasty and it really shouldn’t be used for plastic parts so much. The one drawback we experienced was the meager half-gallon of water that each pouch produces. Even for just these three parts we felt the need to mix up a gallon of the sauce and tip the bucket so that it would fully cover all of the parts. Continue reading to see how gross all of this gear was before the soak.
