Flow

[dieselfish89]

What is a good recommended flow or turn over of a 180 gallon tank

 

[kfisc]

Over the years, it seems to me the best bet is to work on eliminating any dead spots (little or no flow) throughout the tank, rather than focus on multipliers of flow. Desired flow also depends of desired inhabitants: An SPS tank really can't get enough random, rapid movement, while a clam tank doesn't need nearly the intensity.

 

[westernpilot]

everyone seems to say at a bare minimum of 10-20 times your tank volume. but more is usually better. and just like kfisc stated you dont want to have any dead spots. It took me about a week to fine tune my flow pattern in my tank.

 

[thegrun]

General guidelines:
20 times for a fish only tank
30 times for soft corals
40 times+ for SPS corals

 

[greed1321]

20, 30, 40 times what? Gph, Gpd?

 

[Jone]

tank water volume,,keep in mind there are 2 different flow/turnover...
1 is flow within the tank itself
2 is actual water being pumped up from sump to eventually overflow back to sump..
Please clarify your intentions

 

[Dkuhlmann]

tank water volume,,keep in mind there are 2 different flow/turnover...
1 is flow within the tank itself
2 is actual water being pumped up from sump to eventually overflow back to sump..
Please clarify your intentions

X2, big difference between flow and turnover.

 

[Sphack]

Since I have been looking for the same answers, I'll clarify my question:
How many times to turn over a 180-200 gallon tank?

As a follow up, any recommendations or guidelines for weir surface area vs talk size? I know more is better. I'm looking at 2x 22" weirs on two sides of a double sided DT. I'm looking at bean animal with two set of pipes, one on each side.

 

[RocketEngineer]

The guidelines are typically in turn over of the display per hour. So for a 200g display, you want say 4,000 - 8,000 gph of water movement (20X-40X). This is normally accomplished with a combination of the return from the sump and powerheads. Exact numbers aren't as critical as creating enough varied flow to suspend detritus so it can be removed elsewhere in the system.

 

[Sphack]

Thanks. How much flow through the sump do you recommend? A 1.5" full siphon is ~2100 gph. I haven't seen tanks yet that plumb multiple bean animal. Do they normally go to larger pumps, or use about 7-10x sump flow rate?

 

[JaySchulz]

Tank/Sump Turnover- 3-10x has been the guideline lately as more flow through sump is unnessary and Inefficient

Flow via powerheads- 20-50x gph depending on what you're keeping in your tank.