Pump suggestions

[Tecdiverfl]

I have a 90 gallon reef tank withe a coral life wet dry. I am using a Rio pump and need more flow. I was considerering having the sump drilled and going with an external pump. I was looking for some suggestions

 

[dean1977]

you have a wet/dry sump? The rio returns water from the sump? How does the water return from the display tank to the sump? Is it drilled or do you have an overflow? How far away is the sump tank?, right under the tank? You can't get a pump that would push more water than the overflow can handle, unless you would need to put a ballvalve on the pumps ouput to turn it down.

That being said, wet/dry are good to convert into refugiums and get rid of the dry part, esp for reefs. They become garbage traps.There are alot of pumps that are good, if the sump is right under the tank a reeflo pump is good, snapper or dart. They are energy efficient, quiet and move a lot of water. They just get weak when the is alot of head pressure. If it was me I would get a super dart gold.
You need a decent amount flow and your overflow probably cant handle it all.

 

[clockman]

Remove any trickle filter protion of the sump. It isn't needed.

I'm using a magdrive 9.5 (@ 950 gph) on my 90 gal. No drilling of the sump needed. Some of the flow is shunted to a phosphate reactor. It still produces good flow in the tank. Whatever pump you get, make sure to install a ball valve on the output side should you need to reduce the flow.

 

[Tecdiverfl]

Tank is drilled. My wet dry is right under the tank

 

[dean1977]

I would change the wet/dry into a fuge or just empty water instead of bioballs or anything like that. Mag drives are good pumps and I have had a few of them. The 9.5 uses about 95 watts and the reeflo snapper uses about 97 watts and moves much more water(x2). It's always better to go with more water flow and valve back if you have too.

 

[Harry_Fish]

Your pump should pump about 3-4 times your tank volume
per hour so you don't get a bunch of bubbles in your tank.

ReeFlo and Pan World are both good external pumps

Hope this helps

 

[Tecdiverfl]

Thanks for your help

 

[Tecdiverfl]

I just looked at my pump its a Rio 3100 rated at 900 gph but the flow really is not to good???

 

[dean1977]

then you need to subtract the head pressure, which will probably bring it down to like 600ish(guessing). Do you have heat issues? My mag heats the water pretty much. I don't know what your budget is, but I would drill the sump and get a snapper or dart. You need the flow bigtime, that rio isn't doing much at all.

 

[Harry_Fish]

Take a look on the home page here for head pressure calculators

 

[Tecdiverfl]

I think drilling it is the way to go. I have heard these can cause heat build up. I am just trying to figure out what size pump to us

 

[dean1977]

Your limited by whatever your overflow is rated at

 

[toothman]

I really do not know why you would want more flow to your sump, it tends to get noisy even with silencers. If you want more flow add a power head I use tunze they are great.

 

[Tecdiverfl]

The flow coming from my returns is not that strong.

 

[dean1977]

Ya, powerheads might be a better soulution, esp if you have a small sump. your return pump can still be upgraded.

 

[Tecdiverfl]

Thanks

Marty