waterflow q's

[wingsoffire]

I have a 29 gallon reef tank wiht a 10 gallon sump. A mag drive 7 drives this operation but I don't think its powerful enough. I could never find good info on how to decide how much flow is needed. Is there such a rule to go by? And if not how can I whats too much?

 

[drummereef]

I would do 3-5x, of the display volume, flow through the sump. This means for a 29 gallon tank you would want between 87-145gph. You must calculate headloss with the return pump as well. In the display I would suppliment the flow to be at least 20x. That means you need to add a powerhead or two to have at least 580ghp turnover.

Here's a guide to mag drive pump head loss -
http://www.saltycritter.com/pumps/mag-drive.htm

 

[Laakmann]

depends on what you want to keep. After running a tank with super high flow I will never go back, growth out of SPS is so much better but I dont know you your LPS will deal with high flow.

I have 90x in my 90 gallons right now

 

[wingsoffire]

Isnt it true that you add ine foot of head pressure for every 90 degree angle in the plumbing too?

 

[Hop]

Nope. Different diameter pipe, yields different loss. There is a headloss calc about halfway down on the left side of the RC homepage

 

[wingsoffire]

ok, for clarification, those 90 degree elbows dont add a foot of head pressure?

 

[Hop]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9583014#post9583014 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Hop
Nope. Different diameter pipe, yields different loss. There is a headloss calc about halfway down on the left side of the RC homepage

Run the numbers through the headloss calc on the home page. Different diameter pipe with different pumps causes different head loss. So no, a 90 elbow does not always cause 1 foot of headloss.