Fish ponds are the most common use. Mag-drive pumps make a lot less heat. As the water temperature rises, it can hold less oxygen, which is bad for either fish or plants.
A common basement sump pump is a much cheaper and more powerful design, but when run constantly, it gets hot. One could certainly use a pump like that in hydro, but it would need to be something like flood and drain, where the pump only runs for a short cycle. A lot of aquaponics setups use flood and drain.
There's a lot of misunderstanding about aeration of hydro reservoirs. People getting started will typically throw a fish tank air pump and bubbler stone into a bucket. We see the bubbles and think that's how the water is getting oxygen. But actually surface tension keeps the air inside the bubble. It doesn't seep out, at least hardly at all. (There are some sewage treatment aerators that use air bubbles, but sewage water tends to have a lot of soap and detergents in it, thus decreasing surface tension.) A hydro bucket bubbler does work, but the aeration comes from the way the bubbles move the water. That's why a water pump is a better aerator than an air pump - water movement is the real key.
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