suggest a pump for 115 gallon tank?

[Ram_Puppy]

so matt you think the ampmaster is within a viable range? The marine depot description says it can be 'dialed back' and I do like that the new motors on them are apparently incredibly efficient.

I have been doing a lot of reading on sumps and fuges today (their design) and I am wondering if a baffle infront of the pump intake would settle any turbulence issues, regardless... buying a pump with power that would never be used would be kinda dumb. and I don't forsee a major size increase in the near future as the pocket book will strain on this one!

[scuba_steveo]

Go with the pan world if you can just simply because it is the best.

Also, if you can put the refugium above the tank and have it gravity drain. I understand that this is not an option for most.

[matt]

2100 gph is not too much flow for a 115 gallon tank by any means, but you definitely don't want to push all of it through your sump. If you can figure out a way to plumb it so most of the flow is within the tank then I think it would be fine. You might try to find a thread that discusses the oceans motion device; Blake (wkopplin) has one. This thing rotates the output of a pump between several pipes. You'd really have to research the plumbing, but basically what I think you'd do is split the output of the ampmaster so that some went directly to the tank as a return, drained into your sump/refugium and back to the pump. The rest of the output of the ampmaster would go to the oceans motion, then through several outlets in the tank, and drain through a separate bulkhead, leading back to the pump but bypassing the sump. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a way to keep those two flow circuits separate, so that during a power outage the whole thing doesn't drain. The guy that makes the oceans motion thing, Paul, would know if it's possible. He's a whiz with this sort of thing. I'd love to try an ampmaster on my 110 in a closed loop. Remember, though, that you need 1.5" plumbing for it. If you try to push it through 1" plumbing, it will lose 40% flow.

Or, you could do the easy thing, which is to buy 2 iwakis or panworlds and run one as a return, one closed loop. This would be a little more expensive, but you'd have more reliability (2 pumps) and simpler plumbing. Whatever you do, in a 30" cube I would think you'd want many outputs into the tank, because of the shape you'd want flow coming from a variety of spots; not too fast in any one area. The oceans motion thing could be perfect. Also, the "calfo return manifold" (search for a description of that) might be great in a cube.

[witecap4u]

A gen x mak4 makes a decent return pump also. I have one on my 100gal...

[GaryP]

I just got a pan world for my 125 but haven't got it installed yet.

Gary