Pump and flow new tank questions

[Mav]

Okay, so I am starting a 210 gallon build. Have a few questions. To start, I know you are supposed to have a tank turnover rate of about 10x/hr. So I would be looking at around 2200 gallons/hr correct?

Also I plan to use a Precision Marine Bullet 3 skimmer with external collection cup. This guy requires around 1100 gph through it and is rated up to 400 gallon skimming capability. Due to the "torpedo" design it needs a high flow high pressure pump.

My main question is

1) What size and brand pump should I go with keeping in mind high flow, moderate pressure, and high efficiency? I keep looking at a reeflo hammerhead pump but am unsure as to what else is out there.

2) Can I run the skimmer and the tank off of the same pump?

3) Is it detrimental to run 2200 gal/hr through a sump refugium?

4) What size sump would be minimum for this application? (looking at an adhi 60)

5) What size heaters would be required? And what is a normal time period for the initial heat up? (had a (1) 300w and (3) 125w heaters for 2 days to raise temp from 44 to 69)

6) The tank has 2 built in overflows with 1inch drain bulkheads and 1 1/4 drain pipes. How much will water will safely flow through the drains with gravity?

7) Will a custom LED setup with 45 cree 3w LEDs with dimmable drivers be sufficient lighting over the tank or will I need to supplement lighting? Tank is 6ft long 24inches deep and 29 inches tall. Will be doing a mixed reef.

Thanks All!!

 

[deboy69]

Re: Pump and flow new tank questions

I use a gen-x mak 5 pump for my bullet 3. Reeflo is low pressure and I tried it with mine with poor results.

Sent from Earth

 

[daverf]

My thoughts on a few:

2) By the time you get all the tight turns plumbed to do this, seems you'd have a quirky configuration to deal with...pressure loss...etc... Personally I would just do separate pumps.

3) Are you accounting for how much gph will drop after the head/height of return pump goes up? You can control flow impact with baffles/filter socks in the sump. I think it It never hurts to put some of the circulation in the tank vs all in the return...helps manage dead spots in the tank.

4) IMO 60 is fine for that size.

5) Should have at least 2 heaters (redundancy if one fails), total power of 2-3W per gallon is rule of thumb, and strongly suggested to have a controller to auto shutoff if one goes haywire hot. Can get a heater-only controller for ~$40 online.

6) I think there are links to charts somewhere on the forum, seems cdrewferd had pump/flow question threads in the last 4 months or so where they were given. I would search. Otherwise, size of those drains for the tank size / return flow you're shooting for seem kinda small. If you can plumb a bean animal drain system, that could help by giving you a full siphon configuration that you can silence (durso).

 

[Mav]

I thought the 10x turnover was simply for return, and powerheads were above and beyond that. Is that correct or is it 10x with pheads and return. If so how much should go through the return per hr?

2200 gph was just a calculation and not a pump size I know ill need a bigger pump than that due to around 6ft of head. What size would be recommended for a 210?

I was guessing 2 300w heaters, I have a medusa temp controller and a rke to control temp.

Ill try to search for the drain. Thanks for the info!

Would I be better selling the skimmer and getting one with a pump already? A pump for this one is around 300 bucks!

 

[deboy69]

Re: Pump and flow new tank questions

You're right on the flow its a max of 10X through your sump. You can look at a Reeflo dart if it's only 6ft head. I found my pump on ebay. You can get the iwaki md 70 for 150 or less used. To do your skimmer with.

Sent from Earth

 

[daverf]

OK I just went looking for the awesome web page that tells you everything about building a herbie or bean animal overflow, and i see the marine-engineers.org site is down. It was awesome and loaded with good info, what's up with that????!!!

Anyway, you've got enough holes to explore a herbie or beananimal overflow. You should definitely check them out - serious plumbing upgrade that lets you run high throttle flow, dial it forward/back, make your plumbing run silent, and go from "not much" to "no" possibility that you dump your entire sump on the floor due to an overflow backup. If you do a little research then start asking questions, you'll get good guidance here. I did a bean animal with everyone's help (pics of it on my old/outdated build thread).

 

[cdrewferd]

Since the overflows are seperate, you can only do a herbie. In order to do a bean animal, you have to connect the 2 overflows. This would be like putting a coast to coast between the overflows. You need this so that water flows through both of the overflows and doesn't get stagnant in 1.

 

[Mav]

Gonna start researching overflows. Currently has (2) 1 1/4 dursa overflows going through 1 inch Threaded bulkheads, also have(2) 3/4 inch returns through 3/4 inch threaded bulkheads. Id prefer to keep all plumbing inside the overflows, however running returns behind the wall wouldn't be too much of an issue. I just want the tank to sit flush with the wall. Maybe I'll build a small box on either side to house wiring and plumbing.

 

[Dbarnes]

Re: Pump and flow new tank questions

I have the same tank and i run a reeflo hammerhead/ barracuda with the low flo impeller which produces around 4900gph however these are low pressure meaning they will NOT run that type of skimmer. I have tested my setup and i run about 2400gph through the tank and it seems excessive, however i converted one return to a backup overflow so i have three overflows working in hopes that should one fail i dont have a catastrophe on my hands. If i were you i would run a mag 18/24 for the tank, also low pressure and an iwaki for the skimmer which is high pressure but i would avoid an iwaki for everything because they are HUGE power hogs... for gph/per watt they are nearly half the reeflo pumps and sense you only have 6' of head its just a waste of power. I also run three mp40s for water movement and there are very few areas that dont have mod/high flow in my tank.

Here is my heater setup at the moment that seems to work great..

H#1 300watt on 78.9/ off 79.1
H#2 150watt on 78.8/ off 79.1
H#3 300 watt on 78.7/ off 79.0 w/ alarm so i know something is wrong if #3 is on

But my sump room is heated and stays about 78degrees, prior to my heated sump room i ran 900 watts of heaters.

My thought is big tanks=huge power bills lol so when i change something i try to keep the consumption on my mind. Currently on average my tank consumes 7.2amps/hr. That equals roughly 20killowatts per day. My last bill averaged 45killowatts a day meaning my tank is running roughly the same consumption rate as the rest of my house :/





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[aztecdreams]

Pump and flow new tank questions

I have the same tank and i run a reeflo hammerhead/ barracuda with the low flo impeller which produces around 4900gph however these are low pressure meaning they will NOT run that type of skimmer. I have tested my setup and i run about 2400gph through the tank and it seems excessive, however i converted one return to a backup overflow so i have three overflows working in hopes that should one fail i dont have a catastrophe on my hands. If i were you i would run a mag 18/24 for the tank, also low pressure and an iwaki for the skimmer which is high pressure but i would avoid an iwaki for everything because they are HUGE power hogs... for gph/per watt they are nearly half the reeflo pumps and sense you only have 6' of head its just a waste of power. I also run three mp40s for water movement and there are very few areas that dont have mod/high flow in my tank.

Here is my heater setup at the moment that seems to work great..

H#1 300watt on 78.9/ off 79.1
H#2 150watt on 78.8/ off 79.1
H#3 300 watt on 78.7/ off 79.0 w/ alarm so i know something is wrong if #3 is on

But my sump room is heated and stays about 78degrees, prior to my heated sump room i ran 900 watts of heaters.

My thought is big tanks=huge power bills lol so when i change something i try to keep the consumption on my mind. Currently on average my tank consumes 7.2amps/hr. That equals roughly 20killowatts per day. My last bill averaged 45killowatts a day meaning my tank is running roughly the same consumption rate as the rest of my house :/





Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

How did you figure what your tank uses in electricity? I recently changed from 4 250w MH and a Reeflo pump to 4 LED and a genx pump. Didn't see any drop in my bill. Of course now I have 3 300w heaters that run a lot more