one shared pump, or two singles?

[hrdneglcry]

I might be getting a Mag 36 aquarium pump. This is one of the biggest in the Mag Drive line of pumps. It has tremendous power, and I woul like to buy a "Y" barbed fitting and split the one hose from the Mag into two hoses with ball valves on each of the two hoses. I want to use one hose for my return pump to the tank, and the other to my Ocean Clear Red Sea Canister Filters whose pump I have in the wet/dry, so that they remove the tons of waste that my wet/dry takes in.
Is this a solid idea?
Each filter now has it's own pump. The Ocean Clear filters have their own pump dedicated to pulling waste out of the water, and returning clean water into the wet/dry.
Maybe I should stick with two separate pumps because otherwise some of the waste, or maybe most of it will no longer get removed by the canister filters before it returns to the tank.

 

[RichConley]

you do realize that a mag36 will probably cost you roughly $40 a month in electricity, in addition to dumping 300+ watts of heat in your tank, so you'll have to run you chiller much more often?

If you're going to run a pump that big, look at a Sequence dart, or something along those lines. 3600gph, 140w, much less heat because its external.

 

[cesau]

Sounds like a big tank!

Your question reminds me of the dilema of using raid arrays in servers.

If you get 2 pumps you have some redundancy, should one blow and youre not able to get another for a few days, you could probably use 1 to get by. However, this comes at the cost of likeliness to break doubled. Basically, if you take any pump and say at any given minute it has x% chance of breaking, the chance of the system as a whole having a problem is 2 * x% with 2 pumps.

 

[hrdneglcry]

I did a search on the following thread........ http://reefcentral.com/calc/tank_elec_calc.php
I entered the Mag 36 for 380 watts of power for 24 hours a day, for one month. It says it costs $23.12 if the price per Kw was .12 cents.
Check out the link.

 

[RichConley]

380w*24h/day*30day/month=273,600 wh/month /1000 = 273.6 kwh/month
273.6*.12=$32.83/month (I pay .19)

You also have to compensate for the 400w of heat you're dumping into your tank, in increased chiller usage, so atleast double that.

 

[hrdneglcry]

I do not use a chiller, and I do not have a reef. It turns out that I am probably not getting the Mag. I was going to trade a fish for it which is why I was getting such a big Mag.
But couldn't I just remove 400 watts of heaters from the tank to compensate for the Mag?
I have two Rio HF32's in my sump now. And I have the recommended amount of heat for the tank (5 watts per gallon). Do I need to be compensating for the Rio's?
I know for sure that one is a HF32. The other might be a Rio 3700, or right around there. John
how much must I compensate for them?

 

[RichConley]

"But couldn't I just remove 400 watts of heaters from the tank to compensate for the Mag?"

Yes, if those 400w of heaters were constantly running 100% of the time. The Mag36 wont shut off if your temp crosses 80.

Still, I'd go with something like a sequence dart if you're gonna buy a big pump like that. Better built, much more efficient, and not all that much more expensive.


Personally, I'd go two smaller pumps.

 

[sjm817]

I dont see a use for a Mag36 in any aquarium application. If you need a pump that big for a closed loop (NOT a return pump!), there are much better options.