Help with 150gal overflow

[Mikey Donuts]

Hello, I'm in the process of planning a 150 gallon seahorse tank and had a question about the overflow/bulkhead. I am shooting for 5x turnover through the sump, but I'm not sure what diameter bulkhead I should use. Should I plan on a larger bulkhead than what is recommended with the calculator, or will this cause excess noise and other problems? Thanks for your help!

 

[papagimp]

In all honestly, if it were my tank, I would go for about 500gph return through the sump. But I use a fuge based sump in my setup. I had a 150 in the works and that was my plan. I since upgraded to a 220g and when I get that sump setup, I'll be using between 500-700gph, again, fuge based sump. Anything much higher and it becomes a little more of a pain to reduce microbubbles. But alot of that willd epend on various equpiment used and size of sump, ect. ect. ect.

As long as your drainpipe is rated close to what the return pump can handle, you shouldn't have alot of noise. You just don't want a large 2" drainpipe and 300gph return, you'll get lot's of gurgling and slurping sounds from the overflow.

fwiw, in my opinion, you can allow higher flow through just a sump, but if you are utilizing a fuge, go slower for that.

 

[Mikey Donuts]

Papagimp, thanks for the reply. The drain line will go into the skimmer first, then the fuge, & then the sump, so I want to keep the flow relatively slow. For my 150, 750gph =5x turnover. The calculator recommends 1.13" diameter pipe. If I go with 1" diameter pipe, the turnover will be reduced to 600gph which I am fine with. The question now is, is there a disadvantage to using 1" pipe. A 1" drain seems pretty small for a 150. Is this a fairly common diameter drain for a tank this size? Are snails and debris blocking the pipe much more of an issue? What about two 1/2" pipes for redundancy? Any advice would be appreciated.
Mike

 

[Mikey Donuts]

anyone?