water flow rate

Put something at the ends and the back of the tank to see if it moved by the current... Is that a 36" or 48" long tank??
 
What I do to see how the water is flowing out of a PH i take the turkey baster or a pipet and put some air the the PH. Then I can watch how the bubles spread though the tank and at what speed they are moveing.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7110432#post7110432 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Nu2SW
Person told me was a guy at petco on arden named steve, Hes a mars member. I was talking to him and he said that with my filter, skimmer and heads it may be too much flow... I didnt think it was, it has a good current flow thru the whole tank I dont think there any dead spots
Click to expand...

Unless you are pointing a powerhead directly at a coral, it's tough to have too much flow.
 
Man, sounds like my flow is way too low. I have a 90 gallon display with sump/refugium. The return is a mag 7 that probably is putting out about 450 gph once you calculate in the inefficiencies and lifting about 6', and a couple of powerheads that are similar to or actually are MaxiJet 1200's, which probably put out about 250 gph apiece. If I'm doing the math right, that would be about a 10x to 12x turnover after subtracting out the volume taken up by the live rock (about 100 pounds in the display), sand, refugium contents, etc.

I have a little bit of everything at this point (softies, lps, sps) but probably want to go more in the sps direction, so sounds like I definitely need more flow. Would either the Tunze Turbelle Stream 6060 (1600 gph; $137 at Marine Depot) or the Seio Super Flow Pump 1500 gph ($70 at same source) be a good choice? (This should put me up to about 33x flow, I think. Enough?) If so, any preferences as to which one? Are Tunzes worth the extra money? Am I on the right track here?

Fred
 
I have two Tunze 6100's in my tank and they are great. They are worth the extra money if you have it to spend. For someone who is on a tight budget or who just doesn't want to spend the money I think the Seio's are fine.
 
I like Seio's, they do tend not to restart sometimes though (I clean them every few months to prevent this).

Turnover flowrates are more or less loose guidelines. What matters is that there is turbulent water movement and the more detritus that you can keep suspended the better. My acros and other SPS do just fine with only 25x turnover. If anyone knows Bamm Bamm he used to have almost 100x turnover... I think he found a projectile acro colony stuck in his ceiling once ;)
 
i find it really tough to spend more than a couple hundred dollars on almost anything. however, i had no qualms about spending $350 for the tunze kit i picked up (used, of course). the wattage used to run these pumps is ridiculously low-- especially when compared to other powerheads and i'll need that power consumption saving when summer comes.

i do own a seio 620 as well...nice pump but i wish that they were controllable. now that i have a controllable pump...wow. i don't want to go back. :D
 
Looks like the Tunze 6060 is not controllable, but with 1600 gph I guess it ought to work fine with just one at full blast. It's less than half the price of the 6100, I believe. Would you recommend having it at one end of the tank, say upper right rear, pointed to the other (lower left front) with a couple of smaller power heads on the rear wall pointed to the front? As long as there's no direct laminar flow on sps's would that create enough turbulant flow for the purpose?

Fred
 
I don't know how much a Tunze cost, but when you build a closed loop system - it can get quite expensive. Add in the cost of a decent pump (Sequence Dart - $220), some sort of water movement system (OceanMotions 4 way $219), and plumbing (estimate $100) - and it's not cheap ($540). So while the Tunze system may seem expensive initially - building a nice closed loop system can get quite costly as well.

Minh
 
fred,
i think the 6060/6080 can be put on timers at 1hr intervals. not truly controllable but somewhat switchable. i've got a idle seio 1500s that you can try out before going all out (but they'll need some cleaning first). i'd say alternate each one at say 30-45 intervals with say 15min of crossover time and you'll be quite impressed :)
 
Supposedly at the San Diego show Seio demoed their controller. This is just what I heard though. The new rumor is they have some super high flow powerhead coming (something like 9000 gph and 50 watts) that oscillates. Who knows though, I may just be throwing fuel on the rumor mill :)
 
Ok dhnguyen, just keep me jonezin for one of them bad boys why dont ya! ;)

These DIY pumps have amazed me for a long time, best of both worlds. Low wattage and INTENSE flow, with a bargain price tag. If I had my druthers, Id opt for one of these from dhnguyen's garage instead of my SEIO's any day!

-Justin
 
The term "tunover" always confused me, I thought it refered to the amound of water being pushed through the filtering system per hour and confused me how to get that much volume through the megaflow........

So ultimatly it means total water movement minus the frictional minor loses, assuming the output of the pumps are what they are rated at?

For instance I have two Seios @ 820 gph, a via aqua at 300 gph, and a via aqua in the sump rated @ 977-friction loss shoud be about 600 or so. This equals 2540gph/75gal=34x?
 
Yup in your case the total movement withing your dispaly is the equivalence of pumping your 75g tank 34 times within one hour:)

-Justin
 
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