The Abyzz Flow Cannon AFC150 Compact is a brand new high performance propeller water pump that is poised to knock your polyps off, almost quite literally. Looking like a stainless steel spaceship the machined titanium housing of the Abyzz Flow Cannon 150 looks nothing like water pumps currently in the hobby or public reef aquarium world.
If you’re familiar with Abyzz’s world leading performance, efficiency and reliability then you know that the Abyzz Flow Cannon Compact is going to blow the expectations for a water mover of this size and price class. Like the name implies the Abyzz AFC150 runs a maximum power of 150 watts to produce not two 250 gallons per hour, but 250 gallons per minute, with a maximum flowrate of just shy of 16,000 gallons per hour, but you’ll likely never run it at the top speed of 15, 840 gph.
At top speed the water movement is more reasonably measured in terms of speed with outflowing water running out at 12 feet or 4 meter per second. The intense water flow is contained by the solid machined titanium housing which itself is peppered with multiple hard mounting points – suction cups won’t do it but a magnetic mount for tank walls up to 15 millimeters thick is available separately.
The propeller is unique in consisting of six narrow blades to create a more laminar water flow which won’t dissipate nearly as quickly as the turbulent water flow usually produced by large bladed propeller water movers. The titanium screws can be removed to disconnect the tubular titanium shroud revealing the internal controllable DC motor and propeller.
A single hole on the backside of the water pump helps to draw tank water through the high performance motor to help keep it cool and reduce the rate of calcium carbonate precipitation within the rotor of the motor. The 12V motor is built for safety and it can be controlled and programmed in countless ways using the smart IPU controller that Abyzz has designed to be robust in hot and humid aquarium ‘working’ environments.
With so much power under the hood it’s nice to see that the Abyzz Flow Cannon 150 Compact can be controlled in 0.1% increments so you can make the finest possible adjustments, and it will naturally play nice with secondary Hydros controllers. There’s also a new feature which allows the pump to turn counterclockwise periodically to dislodge any particles which may have become caught on the intake strainer.
It’s no surprise that despite its unassuming size, such a powerful pump will really only be suitable for some of the largest reef tanks and public displays but no doubt we’ll see reefers try to install the Abyzz Flow Cannon 150 Compact on tanks smaller than 15 feet long. Abyzz has already started producing their initial runs of the AFC150 Compact which is priced at $2,599, they will begin shipping in the coming weeks, and it’ll be very interesting to see what this pump does on some larger tanks and especially on bigger exhibits filled with live corals and reef life.
