How Much Flow

[newreefbishop]

There are so many schools of thought when it comes to this. I wanted to know what, you guyz thought. I have a 65 gallon tank with a 15 gallon sump/fuge, in the sump portion I have my protien skimmer, my return pump, is pushing 380 gph, after head loss im looking at closer to 250, now the question i had was where should this be, is the flow about right for this setup.

I was thinking of upgrading to a 780 gph pump, but 600+ gph is a bit much flowing through a 15 gal fuge, anyway your thought, and ideas would help. Its either this buy some more fish.

 

[rigleautomotive]

i think your flow thru the sump is fine.if you want to increase flow in tank add closed loop or tunze stream ect...

 

[newreefbishop]

remember the 250 is flow from return pump to display and down overflow. I have three powerheads in the tand now, to increase circulation in the display and agitation, but curious on flowing through sump/fuge. I thought it was ok, but some people are telling me i need to shoot for 6-10 times, which seems to be madness for a fuge, nothing will get absorbed and pods wont like it much.

 

[rigleautomotive]

plenty of flow thru refuge.i think you are ok.providing you are not using a skimmer that works better with high flow.a downdraft or beckett will do better IMO with a high flo sump where as a needle wheel works fine with lower flow.like you say there is a lot of ways to do it and none are wrong.i run ets downdrafts and they work better and consistently if i give them a lot of flow.if i reduce volume thru sump they do not work consistently.thats why AE TECH recommends a ultra high flow sump,the skimmers work much better with this sump set up.needlewheel skimmers tend to work consistently even with much lower flows than recommended ,i think cause they are efficient.

 

[newreefbishop]

I have a CS65 needlewheel.....it pulls a huge amount of goop out of water.....

 

[rigleautomotive]

IMO with your current equiptment i would not change return pump.your pump is fine