how much flow going through your sump?

[bprewit]

I changed my return pump today and all piping AGAIN! Sheesh I coulda plumbed two large houses with the amount of PVC I have gone through on this tank. I had a mag 7 as a return pump with a 30g sump and 120g tank but the piping was smaller than it sould have been and at 5.5' I was flowing maybe 300gph. I split the return into two seperate returns and went with 1" pvc and changed to a mag 9.5 which should be flowing somewhere in the neighborhood of 700gph through the sump now. Crap man thats alot more flow and makes me nervous! The previous pump and setup had been used on my 55g tank and was perfect for me but now the 120g tank I figured needed more flow. I have a little mag 2 that moves water from the sump into the fuge as well. So what is rule of thumb for flow through a sump? 5X or 6X tank volume? I can add a tee and valve from the discharge and lessen the flow if needed so just curious how much everyone else is flowing? The baffle arrangement in my sump sucks but piled LR rubble between the baffles which cut the mico bubbles to almost none luckily.

[caz]

IMO you need more flow for a tank of that size.
I'm going to be using a 9.5 for my 55 gal.
Someone shed some light on this topic?

[alton]

Mag 18 on my 155 (60" x 24" x 25"

[TexasTodd]

It depends on what you are keeping in your tank.

Good flow is a key part of a healty tank.

I can't speak on other animals; but sps corals, fish, and anenomes really benefit from lots of flow.

People use to say 8-10x per hour. Then they moved to 10-20x per hour. Now many sps tanks are 40x+ per hour turn over. These upper end flow tanks are usually bare bottom.

One of the best bang for you dollars for in tank flow is to order some eductors or "flow multipliers". They are kind of big a 4.5" long for a small tank. These will increase your tank circulation by 5-7 times the flow the pump is returning. You do need a fairly hefty pump with a minimum flow of 500gph or so entering the eductors.

www.aquaticecosystems.com has them. Go to "pumps" and they are listed on the page also. They are about $20.

Todd

[Thunderkat]

Good flow is important to some animals because they use the flow to build up an electrostatic charge (like rubbing your feet on the carpet) and that charge lets them capture dissolved organics so they can feed. It also assists with removal of wastes.

Just read up on your corals or the critters you have, some like high flow and some like moderate flow.

[bprewit]

I actually have a closed loop running a little mag 7 as well as a couple of 300gph powerheads in the tank on a wavemaker of sorts so flow inside the tank is close to about 2000gph now with a actual tank volume of around 85 gallons which is moving that volume about 23X an hour and sufficient for what I am keeping at present time. I was just concerned about too much flow through the sump itself and curious how much is enough and how much is considered too much. Right now I am moving about 8X /hr of the tank volume through the sump which dosent give the water much time in the sump for the skimmer/LR time to do anything with the water. Concerned I may need to trim that back just a bit?

[pickle311]

I believe in getting as much flow as possible, read this

http://www.maast.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=12715