The AC style powerheads tend to rattle the impellers before they take off. DC models do not do this. And I believe that the new Hydors have fiured this out also.
Yea, I run the same style, i stick my finger in there to slow it down enough to catch. Those, imo, should not be used on a wavemaker, they tend to do this.
Most powerheads with the exception of Hydor Evolutions and Sicce Voyagers are not designed to be controlled, they cannot take the constant starts and stops. Hydor Evolutions have a rubber bump stop which forces the impeller to rotate in the correct direction and Voyagers have a non directional impeller so does not matter which way they rotate. I have owned both and preferred the Evolutions as they are much smaller, move more water in a better pattern, have a better mounting system and use less than half the power.
That being said, I switched to the new Jebao WP series a couple weeks ago and have been very pleased so far. They are DC powered pumps so can be variable speed and have a built in controller so no separate controller is needed and cost about the same as a bare Evo or Voyager which require a controller to do the same thing.
Would you be intrested in buying them I'm buying some hydors and I need to get some money back out of these as they were one used a couple days. I have two of them.
You don't need your pumps to be in wave mode to have good flow in the tank. If you aim the powerheads at each other or where the paths cross it will create the random flow you are looking for without having to buy new powerheads.