by Saga
Petco Pumps Discontinued?
5:55 pm in Materials and Resources, pumps by Saga
New to your site & the Petco #9902 & #9904 air pumps recommended for set up are Discontinued, no longer available. Please, please recommend an alternative air pump with control dial that will work just as well. Excited to set up a Window Farm. Many Thanks.
Wow, I just got a 9904 not to long ago… In looking at the Petco web site, I see they have the Rena and the Tetra Whisper brand. I can’t find a single specification online for the Tetra brand and the tank (10, 20, 40 60 100 gal) size is a meaningless number for comparisons. Malmart sell the Tetra. Enough said. Any one tried a tetra?
Here is the Rena/Petco comparison:
Petco 9901 flow – 108 l/h, pressure – 100mb, 1 port
Petco 9902 flow – 240 l/h, pressure – 120mb, 2 ports
Petco 9903 flow – 270 l/h, pressure – 140mb, 2 ports w/ 1 adjustable flow
Petco 9904 flow – 540 l/h, pressure – 140mb, 4 ports w/ 1 adjustable flow
Rena 200 flow – 160 l/h, pressure – 200mb, 1 port w/ adjustable air flow
Rena 300 flow – 200 l/h, pressure – 300mb, 1 port w/ adjustable air flow
Rena 400 flow – 400 l/h, pressure – 300mb, 2 ports w/ 2 adjustable air flows
If I didn’t have the petco 9904 already, I would get the Rena 400 and add a couple of tees to get back to my 4 ports. I have 3 columns so far and growing. On the other hand, I am running the pump at the lowest air flow setting so I might be able to get a way with one with a lower flow, but I want to add more columns so I got the bigger one.
Thank you for answer. Will get what you recommend & do as you say by adding a couple of tees. Thanks again!
Hey @admin, @britta do you know the Petcos pumps are going away?
Rena 400 could work with some T lines and you can get adjustable dial inline adapters if you really want the power adjustment.
(I’ve adjusted this post to include a proper title and categories..)
Just checked the Petco website and they don’t have any of their pumps listed anymore. Could be a shortage or maybe they are being discontinued?
Can someone call a local Petco to confirm?
Thanks to all & to Tony for providing me with an alternative air pump as the Petco brand no longer listed. Ebay had a Renno 400 as Tony suggested & I ordered it for much lower price as it was listed as used & still working fine. I’m in the process of obtaining all the supplies needed to make my own Window Farm & can’t wait to get it up & running. Presently I use 2 Areo Gardens for herbs, do some other micro kitchen counter top gardening, sprouting, Earth Buckets & to add Window Farming just makes perfect sense as I have the perfect windows to do this & this is a greener & better solution than buying new curtains for the windows. You can’t eat window curtains but you can eat strawberries that you grow in your Window Farm. I am so happy I discovered Window Farm videos on You Tube as every body can do this. Window Farms needs to have adds in popular magazines so more people know about this. Again, many Thanks to all.
Hi, I have talked on the phone with people in my area from Petsmart(canadian Petco)and they had no idea what I was talking about:( Does anyone know of a pump from Petsmart that is the same as petco pumps?
This is my question:
Does a 2 way air pump have 2 out puts, one bringing air in and one blowing air out? or does 2 way mean 2 outlets, both blowing air out? Im confused by which pump to use. I have 2 pumps at home. One with 2 outputs blowing air out and bringing it back in and I also have one that only has one output that blows air. Can I use this one with a t valve? Any help on what pump to use would be greatly appreciated!
I am so excited to get my window farm up and running!
Thanks,
Melissa
I called my petco in Idaho Falls, Idaho. They still have the 9902, and 9904 pumps. However, they are not available online.
hey guys,
i am looking for a petco 2 way air pump in the UK, but i dont think they are availible here. can anyone recommend another pump that will be suitable. Also on the smaller and simpler version, can you stack more than three bottles, or will that affect it?
thanks, really excited to get started.
Wondering if anyone can help. In the Petco near my house they have the 9904 but not the 9902 pump. I want to build a 2 column farm. Can I buy the 9904 with 4 outputs and just use 2 of them? how will i block the other 2?
Sure. Get the four outlet kind. Don’t block the other two, use them. You can use what is called a manifold or a t-connector or y-connector (ask for them at the store) to unite two air outlets into one. Or, you can get two airstones and direct them into your reservoir so that your nutrient solution will be extra-aerated whenever the pump is running.
Look for a brand called Active Air. I think they are available pretty much everywhere. You can basically use any aquarium air pump, but just watch out for quality issues. Also, we prefer kinds that have the dial so that you have an additional level of control over the flow.
The physics of the V2 generally cease to work reliably if you are trying to pump any higher, thus causing pump failure and plant death. That’s the whole reason to invest in the better components and optimized design for V3– more plants to the pump.
Yeah. We may actually be responsible for it. The local Petco here in New York literally hates me because we basically revealed how bad their quality assurance was. I think I returned at least 10 pumps to them for various reasons. Their checkvalve failures were really high and it seems that a lot of the units have only one reliably functional outlet. Most people are just hooking them up to an airstone in their fish tank so they don’t really notice bad performance, but for windowfarmers, we need better assurance.
I like Active Air better, which we sold with the DIY kits, but they are more expensive and they still have failure issues– I think about 10% of the time.
We had to do our own quality control on them, plugging them in to test that both outlets worked and that one outlet did not make more noise.
The bad news is that no one does a great job on these pumps on the low end of the price scale.
The good new is that they are generally easy to fix. If you take them apart, it’s usually just a gasket that is seated incorrectly or that water has gotten into the air bladder. The springs inside the check valves can also be repositioned with a needle if you are very careful. Reduce, reuse, recycle, REPAIR!