Since the good people at Marineland decided to give me a new Maxi-jet 900 pump (free contest give away, not a promotion) I thought I would do a quick review about the new style MJ pump.

I'm sure everyone has either seen or owned a MJ pump at one point.  MJ pumps have been an inexpensive work horse pump for many different applications.  Fairly recently Marineland changed the design of the MJ pumps to match a common trend of people modding them with a propeller.  Dubbed a "cheap-man's" tunze the MJ pumps performed fairly well with the propeller.  

First here is what comes in the box; like all previous MJ pumps there was a plethora of extra parts in the box:

Marineland also provided some good directions that show the different configurations of the pump:

The pump comes set up with the standard impeller setup:

Like all of the old pumps the MJ comes apart easily.  In the parts bag there is a new shroud and a propeller:

Placing the new hardware in to the pump was very easy.  I also noticed that there is a rubber o-ring to seal the pump (base of the shroud):

Before I get to any opinions I also shot a quick video of the pump in action.  I'm a little embarrased that the video shows some build up detris in the sump where I tested the pump, but I guess it helped to show the flow the pump put out.

So, now the good, the bad and the ugly.  First off the pump seemed to put out some great flow!  I really liked how it kicked up the detris and started to move enough water to get the cheato moving.  I also think the pump itself felt like it was built better then the old MJ pumps.  That being said there were some things I did not like about the pump.  First I though the pump was a little loud, although the MJ pumps have always been a little on the loud side.  Secondly the mount for the pump was really weak and still relied on suction cups.  You'll notice in the video that the mount for the pump did not do a very good job of keeping the pump in place.  I can see how that could be a problem, especially where the pump "fell" from it's position when the power was turned off.  This could be a big problem if the power went out depending on how the pump was sitting when the power came back on.  Considering the pump is only $24.99 (on-line price) it might still be well worth the investment.  At a listed gph of 1000gph the closes hydor koralia-evo is the evolution 1050 (1050gph) with a listed price of $38.99.  If it was me I would probably pay a little more for the koralia, but the MJ is still a decent pump for the price.