Whats the difference between a pump and a powerhead?

stavs

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Jan 1, 2007
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Whats the difference between a pump and a powerhead? And when would you use one over the other...I've often wondered that all these years.
 
Powerheads agitate the surface more. The more agitation means more oxygen exchange, but usually the filter or an airstone does a good enough job bringing oxygen into the water.

I don't think it matters which one you use, as long as you have some surface agitation. River fish might like the power current of the powerheads. I use an airstone because I like seeing the bubbles.
 
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for the most part the cheap pumps are essentially the same as a power head they both use a magnetic driven impeller. but the bigger pumps I have seen use a direct drive system.

For the most part they are interchangeable if you only want low pumping volume and no head pressure and if you can get the plumbing to work. but if you need head pressure or really big pumping volume then a direct drive pump is the way to go.

I hope that helped.
 
A powerhead is a pump. Plain and simple.

This is relevent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump

And, A proppeler pump (search for: Tunze stream, koralia, or vortech to get some examples) is really the way to go for high water flow... thes will move the most watter for the lowest wattage
 
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^Yeah.

In aquarium terms a powerhead is basically a pump designed to be fitted to an undergravel filter tube. But they can be run on their own. A pump is usually more universal and you hook it up to suit your needs. They cover a wide variety so you cant just compare a pump to a powerhead. Some pumps can be submerged, some cant. Some can be hooked up inline some cant. Depends on your application And those propeller pumps like dorkfish mentioned are definately the way to go just for circulation (atleast if you need a lot of it).
 
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