mag drive 7 as return?

Beware they can run quite a bit warmer than other pumps... enough to add a degree or two to the water for some people. If you live in a hot place without central AC (such as myself in southern CA), you might want to take that into consideration. Without a heater even plugged in, my tank is already running around 79 - 80F and that's with carefully choosing pumps and lighting will run the cool (I do have a chiller that needs to get plumbed).

They can also run loud for some people. Again, if it's in the bedroom next to your head, that might be another factor. As far as the return, if you plumb the return with a length of soft, vinyl tubing and then have that go pvc or hard plumbing, that can help to reduce noise.

Food for thought =)
 
I run a 1800gph mag drive 9.5, but I did quiet mine down by putting rubber matting under the fuge, and under the pump itself using the mat that came with the pump. I also used a section of 6" flexible rubber hosing instead of the hard pvc piping. It's pretty darned quiet now, but dang was it 'growly' before! They put out a little heat, also, fyi.
 
OK I see and how do u attach the PVC to a 1/2in outlet? On the pump which is threaded?
I use the 1in PVC

And also if I want to use tube how do I attach a tube to PVC

And what should be at the end of the return line that goes into the tabnk?
 
Most definately, but the 9.5 is quieter than the 7. Looking at head loss assuming your sump is below the display tank you have 387gph coming out of a single pipe at 5 feet with the seven and 647gph coming out of a single pipe from the 9.5. If you dont have any other power heads or pumps in the display you are at 7 times your water volume of your display with the 7 and at almost 12 witrh the 9.5. You can go with the 9.5 if you wish and still be good. If you feel it is too much direct flow you can valve it down a bit with no real wear on the pump. I have a 65 gallon with the 9.5 full open plus a koralia 750 and 850 for circulation and a koralia 240 and 425 going across the top of the water for surface agitation and gas exchange. http://www.reefcentral.com/index.php/head-loss-calculator is a good head loss calculator so you can see actual gph movement with the correct plumbing that you use. Me personally I have the mag 9.5 going into a pvc valve and then to flexible vinyl tubing that goes straight to the bulkhead on the bottom of my tank.
 
By tube do you mean the flexible vinyl? If so you get a hose barb that is threaded on one side and the tube slips onto the other side. They are a couple of dollars tops at Home Depot. They also sell the flexible tubing. Just google hose barb and you will see what I mean pretty quickly. Make sure to get pvc and not metal.
 
I just saw in your other thread that you are using an overflow box. Unfortunately I have never used one so I cant gaurentee that the difference in the pump will make a big difference in the way the flow goes into the tank or noise in conjunction with the overflow box. My tank is drilled with an internal overflow and two return nozzles so that may or may not make a difference. Personally I would still go with the 9.5 because you can valve down the pump but you can't boost the output on a 7 if you feel that it is not enough, but again I have no experience with the overflow boxes so maybe someone else will chime in. I don't even know what type of flow an overflow box will handle.

Are you planning on keeping corals? If so you are looking to aim at 20 to 40 times your water volume in circulation depending on what types of corals you want to go with. I like my koralia pumps for water circlulation but most swear by mp40s. I would much rather spend $80 on two koralias than $400+ on one mp40.
 
not sure if you can see it from this photo but I used (i think) a 1/2" FPT x 1/2"FPT fitted to a 1/2" MPT x Barb fitting....

The reason for this was the barb fitting with mpt wouldn't fit enough threads onto the pump and would leak.

 
Crooked Reef said:
I just saw in your other thread that you are using an overflow box. Unfortunately I have never used one so I cant gaurentee that the difference in the pump will make a big difference in the way the flow goes into the tank or noise in conjunction with the overflow box. My tank is drilled with an internal overflow and two return nozzles so that may or may not make a difference. Personally I would still go with the 9.5 because you can valve down the pump but you can't boost the output on a 7 if you feel that it is not enough, but again I have no experience with the overflow boxes so maybe someone else will chime in. I don't even know what type of flow an overflow box will handle.

Are you planning on keeping corals? If so you are looking to aim at 20 to 40 times your water volume in circulation depending on what types of corals you want to go with. I like my koralia pumps for water circlulation but most swear by mp40s. I would much rather spend $80 on two koralias than $400+ on one mp40.
Click to expand...

Ok well I think I will keep corals but 20 times!! My overflow box is rated at 800gph will 12 times be good enough for coral with the 9.5?
 
nicowen876 said:
Ok well I think I will keep corals but 20 times!! My overflow box is rated at 800gph will 12 times be good enough for coral with the 9.5?
Click to expand...

Its not as bad as you think. One Koralia 850 will add an additional 13 times movement in the tank. You can put on in each back corner aiming in an "x" shape towards each fromt corner and add 26 times flow in a matter of minutes. plus the 12 times from the overflow box and you are at 38 times for an additiona $80 bucks which will be enough to keep most corals. LPS and SPS need more flow that soft corals like mishroms and such. Each coral has its own flow and lighting requirements. Look at the corals on liveaquaria.com and you will se that they specify low, moderate, high flow and such. 12 times volume will get you by with some zoanthids and mushrooms to start. I know that it sounds like your tank is going to have really high flow and stuff will be blowing all over the place, but if you set it up this way you will see that it is not the case.
 
If the overflow box is rated for 800, I would definately go with the 9.5 and valve it down if you need to, though with head loss I doubt you would. From what I have read if you go with too low flow in an overflow box you can get air bubbles and it will break the siphon. the 9.5 is rated at 950 gph but that is right at the pump without any pipes or vertical pressure. when you are pumping water up through a pipe you will lose some pressure so that your actual gph will be lower. This is what the head loss is.
 
OK great so I guess I will get the 9.5

How long do these pumps last?

And for the PVC return what kind of setup did u use for the thing that puts it back in the tank at the end of the PVC?
 
mag drive 7 as return?

Bring the pump and a piece of PVC to Lowes. Hold them both up to a worker and say, "I need to hook this (hold up pump) to this ( hold up PVC). ". After about 3 minutes of scurrying about, you'll be all set.

At the end of my return, I just used 2x90's, 1x45. And a couple inches of pipe to get the return over the rim and point the water toward the middle of my tank.
 
I'm not sure if you have a clear interpretation, so I'm just going to state some info/numbers here.
Generally we shoot for about 5x turnover for a sump return, and the rest of your flow comes from PH's or other pumps in display.
A normal display flow is about 20x at minimum, 40x turnover for a mixed reef, sps can go much higher.
There are people that love their mags, I'm not sure exactly why, there are so many other options that are much more efficient, cooler, quieter.
Eheim, tunze, sicce, diablo.
 
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