Is a DC pump controller necessary?

[LAW444]

We bought a house with an existing Koi pond with two existing pumps, each pump goes to a different waterfall. The big pump goes to the big waterfall, the small pump goes to the small waterfall. The biggest of the two runs directly off of AC, nothing fancy, just plug it in and it comes on. The second, smaller pump is a Jebao DC 4000L/hr Pump that has a 50W DC pump controller. It has been working fine until this morning. I went out to check on the pond and the small waterfall wasn't running so I checked all of the connections to make sure that the lightning storm we had yesterday didn't affect anything. Everything seemed fine except I couldn't get any power to the pump. I have no idea what the purpose of this DC pump controller is so I don't know if I need to replace it or will I need to replace the entire pump?? I have noticed that while the pump was running there were blue lights on the DC pump controller but I don't know their purpose. I do know what the AC/DC converter box is for but not the controller. Anybody have any clue? I've never messed with anything like this before so I don't know what to make of it. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[GBBUDD]

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[combatwombat]

I think you can buy replacement controllers on Amazon or eBay and they aren't too expensive. If you don't use the variable speed settings and you're comfortable soldering, you might be able to open the controller up and simply short the I/O wires together. Not sure if that would work, but doesn't hurt to try it since it's one step from the trash bin anyway.