Is 30X turnover too much?

[chibils]

I'm going to be converting my drilled 40 long (48 x 12 x 12-ish) into a reef tank in the next few months. I'm going to run a sump in the stand and I'm looking at a 1200GPH pump (1500@4ft and throttled to 80%). I'm thinking this is good turnover for the tank, but bad for a small sump.

I have to drill additional holes on the back already for drains and returns (it currently only has one hole drilled on the back), and I figured I might be able to make a sort of closed loop by tee-ing off the return to two or three return holes. This would reduce the need for supplemental flow from powerheads and the like.

I'm not sure what kind of constraints I need to worry about here - any advice?

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[grouper therapy]

You will either have an open return or a closed loop. It is impossible to have both.

 

[chibils]

Thanks. I'm just trying to think of ways I could use this bigger pump. I'll probably end up buying a new return for this.

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[benpoole28]

what your referring to doing wouldn't be a closed loop. a closed loop pulls from the same source the water is returned to. If you do multiple return lines, you just have to be sure all of them are above the water line and then come back down to where you want the output to be. otherwise gravity will flood your sump when pump is off. If you feel your pump is too big, build a manifold and feed reactors or directly back into the sump. I don't think 1200gph is too much at all.

 

[civics14]

dang, i'm doing 1200 gph on a 150g on my return, i can't imagine on a 40 breeder.

 

[benpoole28]

I think multiple returns outputs would knock that 1200 down drastically. Lots more pipe and fittings to go thru.

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[chibils]

Sorry, I don't think I communicated clearly. I don't want to build a closed loop; I wanted to distribute the flow from my oversized pump to multiple return lines the way a closed loop sends water to multiple lines on the back or sides of the tank. I was also thinking about running 2 BRS Mini Reactors for carbon and GFO, which I could feed off my return. Hopefully that would get me down to ~300GPH per return line and a couple hundred GPH for the reactors. I'm not mechanically minded; is there any reason this can't be done?

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[chibils]

I would also like to be able to run only one powerhead with this set-up hopefully, depending on how the return lines end up working.

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[benpoole28]

That's what I would do. If you haven't bought your pump yet, I would get as big a pump as you can fit in the sump comfortably. Get a dc model so you can dial it down to whatever flow you need. You may find after all the piping, fittings etc. Plus reactors, you may not have as much as you thought you would have and need more powerheads.

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[chibils]

Thanks @benpoole28. I also have an old Gen-X PCX30 sitting in storage if it still works. It only pushes about 900GPH@4FT. I think I want more than that and will probably buy another pump. I can use the PCX30 to circulate water in the saltwater mix can in the garage and pump it to the tank during WCs. 😃

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[enderg60]

I have over 50x turnover in my 300g tank just from the closed loop.

Possible down sides. To much flow for some corals, blowing sand around and a loud as crap overflow. Thats about it.

 

[civics14]

Loud as crap overflow - that would deter me right there, I'm switching from a durso to an her i.e. In my next set up to reduce the noise

 

[chibils]

Well I have to drill some more holes in this already as I bought it with only one hole. Can't do a drain and overflow out of one 1" hole. 😃 Figured I'd go bean animal and while I'm in there add a few more on the back for multiple return lines! Do you think 2X over 3 holes (350GPH/hole) is too much for a mixed reef? Euphyllia (torch hammer etc), acans, zoas, scolys, rhodactis (shrooms), ricordeas, pocillopora, eventually assorted acros? I will probably have to add a Tunze nanostream pointed up top and keep the SPS there to have adequate flow, yes?

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[grouper therapy]

You can always control the flow via a ball valve as well. I would put 1 1" drain in and adjust flow that it will handle. Are you plan on putting all this inside the 40 or are you doing and external ghost style overflow?

 

[chibils]

It will be an external overflow. When I get home, I'll try to draw this in SketchUp to make this easier to visualize for myself and everyone else.

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[chibils]

After spending an hour fiddling with SketchUp, I have to concede defeat. I'm pretty incompetent.

I tried to make a plumbing diagram but I might be better off doing it by hand. And that's a really sad statement considering my drawing skills are dismal and my drafting skills are... well, I don't have any.

>http://imgur.com/Vs4zlD4.png</a>

I placed the overflow there because the hole in that corner is the one that's already been drilled. I could make that a return hole and drill two holes for a ghost overflow anywhere on the tank. If I didn't find it so time consuming to use SketchUp I would actually make the hole on the far right my return and add two holes centered in the middle for the overflow.

 

[dylpik27]

I don't think there's such thing as too much turnover provided you disperse the flow so that corals/fish are not blasted with tight streams of fast-flowing water and your plumbing can handle it. Noise is a concern too like someone above mentioned but that's completely up to your tolerance and there's ways to combat that.