Water movement aficionados Panta Rhei have teased a very interesting new device called Panta Surge on their Instagram feed. Based on our first looks, Panta Surge consists of a 3D printed box with (we’re guessing,) a Hydro Wizard controllable pump inside that pulses, sucking in water at one end and pumping it out at the other. A pump in a box is not new, and Tunze were the first to make a proper wave-making box in the Tunze Wavebox.
But Panta Surge is different because instead of sucking and pumping through the same entrance low down, emptying the box of water in the process, Panta Surge sucks in water at the bottom and pumps it out of the top, creating a surface wave more akin to a dump wave device, sending water crashing out over the surface. The added advantage too, is that water is drawn across the bottom of the tank by the water inlet, then sent across the top via the surface outlet, circulating all the tank water and helping to eliminate substrate deadspots while agitating and oxygenating the surface at the same time.
Panta Rhei has made two short videos of two models – the 42 and the 63, which we are guessing hold the Hydro Wizard 42 and 63 DC wave pumps inside them. If we’re right the Hydro Wizard 42 produces a maximum of 11,280lph/2980 gallons for 33 watts of energy, and the 63, a whopping 51,000lph/13473 gallons for 120 watts consumption. Despite all that potential power the two Panta Surge boxes remain as compact as can be at 80x80mm/3.15’ x 3.15” for the 42 and 120x120mm/4.72” x 4.72” for the 63.
So what does this mean for us aquarists? Well, we hope they have a worldwide patent on the Panta Surge because the principle would be easy to copy with any DC pump. And the box is 3D printed after all. These won’t be cheap either, as the two pumps on their own are 748 and 1910 euros each, and that’s without the Surge boxes. We also don’t know how much noise the Panta Surge produces in the home aquarium and if it affects our centrally mounted surface scavenging weirs. We already get considerable disruption when a powerful wave pump sends water across the surface of our home tanks and a rush of water goes down the emergency drain pipe. There is the size too, with a few people already commenting on having to place a black box inside their tanks.
But we absolutely love it in principle, we love how it works, what it does, and the benefits it could have on a reef aquarium. There are obvious commercial opportunities here too, as Panta Rhei has even larger pumps and we can see even larger versions of the Panta Surge being installed in public aquariums, if they aren’t already. We need design, innovation, and invention to keep the equipment side of the hobby progressing, and the innovative Panta Surge ticks all three of those boxes as well as maintaining Panta Rhei’s core company values.
