I have had mine several months and have had no problem at all, I haven't even cleaned it yet, although I need to.
I haven't run mine on a wavemaker, I use the one I have now for movement through my rocks, I am getting another one to put on the other side of the tank, also blowing through the rockwork.
I too have a small tank and felt for the tunze were too much flow, and I hated to spend all that money and cut them way back.