Why do we assume a large return pump is needed?

Ok the boss said yes for a new tank!

thanks for all the Ideas ! sump placement , return , closed loop...

But with say 150g tank what size overflow box and placement?

Did i open a can of worms?

It use to be so easy Water , gold fish . 10gal tank next week new water new fish ( thanks mom i never knew )

Fear
 
Sump ... start with filter sock , euro-reef 6-2+ ?
pump to a refugium.
I would like to use a good Calcium reactor

Tank 60x24x24 starglass front

rock start with 150-200+- lbs and sand

lights 3x250 or 2x250 and 1x400 with blues and moons

I like the closed loop Idea

I will have the assortment of soft / hard , shrooms , fish , Nemo (j/k)

Dave
 
I am setting up a 7x2x2 210 gallon. It has a 36" stand. I have a couple options to try with the sump.

1. Standard under the tank

2. Closet on the other side of the wall behind the tank.

I have a euroreef 12-1 on order with two sedra 5000 pumps.
I am intrigued by HTK's post about putting the sump on a stand in another room. I suppose that since the weight of the water in the tank will push the drain uphill from it's exit that this should work.

I am interested in peoples ideas on what pumps to use. I have a couple of rio 3100's that came with the tank I bought as a stock tank. I do not need to use those though.

Of course there are two different pumps I need to buy. the return and the in tank pump. What suggestions do people have for this setup?
 
Feartoy,
based on the info you gave I would say your only limiting factor might be the refugium. To get the most out of it, I have the opinion that the flow through this part of the tank should be kept pretty high. That is perhaps the one reason I can think of for why a sump should have a high turnover. That being said, I can say this as well....
You could just pump the fuge to recirculate into the sump while still giving it high flow...of put an extra circulation pump (read: powerhead) in the refugium. Why? Macros like decent flow. It brings them more nutrients faster. It also increases the pod population turnover into the main tank. But, lets not get overcritical here. So we may not be following the "eco-system" directions to the "T" but Im sure a refugium will still do fine with a lower turnover of fresh water from the tank. Some advocate a low flow refugium in particular. And DNA's huge refugium on his 300+gallon doesnt seem to mind the low turnover.
So, for an overflow on your new tank...how about a simple 6"x4"x6" box siliconed to the back wall with a 1" bulkhead in it? In the corner, in the middle...whatever. The main idea would be to have the sump return be something like 100-200gph at most...just enough to skim the surface of the tank and feed mostly that to your skimmer over and over again until its deep cleaned. Other than that everything is as usual. You just have to pick out circulation powerheads of some sort or a closed loop design.

jeasley,
if you have the possibility of raising your sump a bit to be closer to your tanks level, go for it. It really cuts down noise and wasted energy...NTM not having to bend over as much to get into the sump. My favorite tank was my 60cube that had the sump with a water level just 12" below the main display. No toilet sounds from the overflow. No backpressure making the pump "whine". Easy access to the sump by just opening a closet door. IMO, the way to go, although it does require the extra space (in another room usually) and prolly some holes in the wall to make it happen. You could use those 3100s as sump returns if you did this method.
 
I like this thread :)
I am a low flow guy myself... I set up my sumo and fuge in my basement.. Here is the run down.. 220g display, 100 fuge, 90 sump... I run maybe 800 gph from my sump to the display, and about 300 gph to my fuge... My display has around 40x turnover, fuge around 3x and sump about 8x... I agre things work best this way.. more skimmer/macro time.. less micero bubbles.. and lower power bills!!!!
When I had my sump under the tank I had a large pump, it was a PITA!!! I am much more happy this way....
 
Thanks for the input! The scary part is that the used tank I bought is using the 3100 as the return. Talk about no flow on the return.... I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new tank so that I can do this right.
 
I'm so glad I came accross this thread! The guy I have building my low sump flow tank tells me I'm crazy. My tank is located in my living room, and I like it silent, so at first I was thinking of having the sump as high as the tank, but then reaized I might as well make it part of the tank.

Basically I'm setting up my tank up like a big 150g JBJ nanocube. It will be 30 x 48x 24 high. The tank will be viewable from 3 sides, with the back business end being the 30" side. The entire back 4 Inches will be partitioned off (coast-to-coast style) so that it is an in-tank sump. The partition will be black acrylic with overflow teeth, and holes drilled to fit Seio and tunze powerheads so that all powerheads are hidden except for the holes.

I will also have a small overflow within the hidden sump area of my tank that will be drilled at the bottom to a rufugium/ sump underneath where I'll put my H&S A-200-1260 skimmer. Flow to that sump-refugium will be in the 200gph range.

2 Seio 820's and 1 Tunze 6060 will give me 3200g of circulation, only take 45 watts and be silent. Sure I lose 4 inches of my tank, but all my powerheads are hidden and I could just have the tank made 4 inches longer if I wanted.

Anyone see a problem with that?
 
To bad I read this thread after I set up my sump. I ended up going with a Mag12 because I was able to get it for half off. Thinking that I would just use a true union ball valve to restrict the flow. What a pain to get it plus plus the overflow drains dialed in correctly.

So now I'm thinking I should just make the change, but needs some advice on the correct pump. Here's what I'm working with- 60 gallon tank,15g sump, two 1" drains (1 is set up as an emergency drain), euroreef 5-2. It looks as if I should have 180gph for skimmer and here's my short list of pumps:

Panworld 40PX- this what I originally was going to go with; already have 3/4" bulkhead to drill hole in sump
Ehiem 1250or1260

Return plumbing is 3/4" pvc tee'd off before going to opposite ends of tank.

Thanks
 
You can use the Mag 12 as a closed loop pump and use an eheim 1250 or even a mag 2 as the return pump. you could plump the closed loop intake (1" should be fine for a mag 12) over the back if you dont have extra holes drilled...and have it return at either corner throught the 3/4"...or use one of the 1" overflows as the CL intake....cuz youll only need one overflow with such little flow. Well, Im sure you can figure it out...maybe even put a wavemaker on the CL like an oceansmotions or SCWD...or just have a bunch of outlets with HYDOR flos on them. That should help you waste less energy.
 
i have an ampmaster 3000 on my 180g and i am very happy that i did...

though only about 1000gph goes to my tank (to keep the noise down to a min), i have it Tee'd off to feed my fuge/remote dsb and best of all...an in-sump closed loop!!!

i have found the in-sump closed loop to be absolutely invaluable.

i have placed about 200+ pounds of live rock in there. altogether, i guesstimate to have about 600 pounds of lr total.

initially, this was just extra lr i have collected over time...but i noticed a few things...

these are observations only and would be very difficult to scientifically qualify and quantify..so all you hard core scientists...dont bust my chops!!!:D

- the extra live rock aids in added biological filtration
- the way i have the rock stacked in a complex loose manner creates a great microbubble killer (i have no baffles in my sump) and better than any baffle system i have ever used
- the in-sump closed loop creates the additional circulation that would be beneficial for the the live rock in the sump
- the protein skimmer is at the other end of my 5 foot sump. i have the in-sump closed loop output directed to the intake of the protein skimmer (theoretically improving skimmer performance)
- the in-sump closed loop mixes water very effectively when the heater or chiller kicks in...resulting in higher efficacy and efficiency of the heating and cooling equipment

now the truth...

i did the very powerful in-sump closed loop because my return pump was wayyyyy to big for my tank overflow. i didnt want to dial the pump back with a ball valve so i just Tee'd it off again to create a closed loop to bleed off any extra pressure/flow. this closed loop actually was going to feed my frag tank...which i am putting off indefinitely until i have more than 20 minutes of spare time per week.

my in-tank circulation consists of:

- 5 mj 1200's in strategic positions on a wavemaker, a seio 820 and a seio 1500. more than enough in-tank circulation...in fact...just a little 'too' much but i am happy with it and most likely will not be getting any streams now!
 
Last edited:
According to the head loss calculator the Eheim 1250 is not big enough. I think I'm going to go with the Panworld. I will be using a Tunze stream for my tank circulation.
 
I have a vertical rise of about 5 1/2 feet with a couple of 90's plus true union ball valve. Using the head loss calc on home page, the 1250 only gets 111 pgh with 5 1/2 feet vertical with no other restrictions added to calculation.

The flow chart on marinedepot.com shows about the same number for gph at this vertical length.
 
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