Need advice for Return pump

[jill]

I am considering replacing my CoralLife Turbo Sea 1740 with a Reeflo pump.

My display tank is a 250 G peninsula with overflo on one of the short ends. The dimensions are 24" wide 64" long and its pretty deep - 31" high.

The sump/fuge is 75 g and sits on a shelf one floor down. Water drains to my Oceanic Chiller and then back up to the shelf where the return pump shoots the water up 8' to a spray bar below the tank which separates into 3 branches. Each branch divides into 2 returns that are hidden in the live rock (for a total of 6 returns).

For my particular specs the Reeflo pumps will return the following:

Goby - 2400 G per hour
Barracuda -4000 G per hour
Hammerhead - 4800 per hour.

I have a high bioload (11 fish including some biggies like my Majestic Angel, Purple Tank, Valentini Puffer, Yellowheaded Sleeper Goby, Henioches and a big mean Tomato Clown.

I also have montiporas, digitatas, acroporas, cloves, starburst, mushrooms, anemones, shrimp. My water parameters are all excellent (testing with Elos).
My skimmer is an SWC Extreme 250. I have a Hydor Wavemaker with 2 #4's and a #8 all on the short wear wall.

The reason I am going to change the return pump is that I have unexplained microbubbles and I also don't feel that I have enough flow since the tank is so deep.

What do y'all think? Which pump would you choose of the three I have outlined or would you recommend a different pump?

 

[ac7av]

I played around with the same thing but I feel that your best bet as far as flow in your display tank is placement of your power heads or maybe a closed loop built off of a couple of your existing return nozzles and have the sump flowing into your other nozzles. You will increase the velocity of the water coming out the nozzle with out the investment in a new pump, high power consuming pump. You can get a nice pump for the closed loop that doesn’t have to support a high head pressure (unless you feel the pump is responsible for the micro bubbles some how). 3 to 5 times per hour tank volume is more then adequate for your possessing center of the tank.

I have 4 nozzles flowing back into my tank from the sump with 800 gph. I increased the flow to 2000 gph and noticed almost no difference in the total water flow in the tank. I went back to the 800 gph. The possessing plant seems to work better at this volume in my tank.

210 gallon display
55 gallon sump / fuge
SWC 200 skimmer
2 JVP-202A power heads
15 small fish growing
and a few softies

 

[jill]

I played around with the same thing but I feel that your best bet as far as flow in your display tank is placement of your power heads or maybe a closed loop built off of a couple of your existing return nozzles and have the sump flowing into your other nozzles. You will increase the velocity of the water coming out the nozzle with out the investment in a new pump, high power consuming pump. You can get a nice pump for the closed loop that doesn’t have to support a high head pressure (unless you feel the pump is responsible for the micro bubbles some how). 3 to 5 times per hour tank volume is more then adequate for your possessing center of the tank.

I have 4 nozzles flowing back into my tank from the sump with 800 gph. I increased the flow to 2000 gph and noticed almost no difference in the total water flow in the tank. I went back to the 800 gph. The possessing plant seems to work better at this volume in my tank.

210 gallon display
55 gallon sump / fuge
SWC 200 skimmer
2 JVP-202A power heads
15 small fish growing
and a few softies

Thanks for you input. I can't do a closed loop - I don't have room. My concern with powerhead flow has to do with placement - the peninsula set up limits my options and the depth of the tank seems to increase the possibility for "stagnant" water which is why I think that more flow from the return pump would help to correct this.

I guess my real question is this - can I have too much flow from the return pump and which of the choices would be best for my set up..
the 2400 GPR, the 4000 or the 4800 given that I have 6 returns to the tank.

 

[jill]

Oh, another question ac7av - what does "possessing plant" mean?

 

[ac7av]

That is just a case of not typing what I am thinking.
The processing area, or sump, refugium, or filtering system what ever you are doing or using to renew the water in your system.

It was just a thought about the closed loop. 4000 gallons of water seems like a lot going threw your processing center but if your overflow box can handle it then why not go ahead and do it. It sounds like with your system, noise is not an issue. I do not have any first hand knowledge of the pumps you’re looking at so I can not comment on them. Most people usually say more flow is almost never too much but can your plumbing system handle it is the question. You have 6 nozzles what are they rated at each?

 

[jill]

Thanks for the thoughts ac7av.

Does anyone else have any advice?

 

[DolphinLVR]

From all that I have read, You should at most be using a return pump at 5 times that of your display, so that would equal about 1250 GPH. I would probably look at replacing the Koralia's with either some MP40's or some Tunze's.

My return on my 180 is going to be around 800 GPH with the rest of my flow consisting of 2 Tunze's

 

[NWDiver]

I'm new, but perhaps this is of some use:
I have a micro bubble issue caused by too fast a flow through my sump.
The return pumps take the water from the return section of my sump at such a rate that it pulls micro bubbles (from the return) through the bubble trap (baffles) without giving them time to surface and pop. I am making a bubble tower to help with this, but if you increase the rate of flow through your sump, you might make the issue worse as I did. That assumes that the bubbles are from that end of the sump...

 

[jill]

From all that I have read, You should at most be using a return pump at 5 times that of your display, so that would equal about 1250 GPH. I would probably look at replacing the Koralia's with either some MP40's or some Tunze's.

My return on my 180 is going to be around 800 GPH with the rest of my flow consisting of 2 Tunze's

hmmm...
Thanks but what do you mean that "a return pump at 5 times that of your display"? How did you come up with the 1250? My tank is very deep and pretty wide which is why I think I need a stronger flow through the return.

My wavemaker koralia's supply plenty of flow in the tank but I would still love to have MP40's. I have a MP10 on my nano and love the way they look but my big peninsula DT won't allow them because I have to keep the pump mechanisms inside the overflow.

 

[jill]

I'm new, but perhaps this is of some use:
I have a micro bubble issue caused by too fast a flow through my sump.
The return pumps take the water from the return section of my sump at such a rate that it pulls micro bubbles (from the return) through the bubble trap (baffles) without giving them time to surface and pop. I am making a bubble tower to help with this, but if you increase the rate of flow through your sump, you might make the issue worse as I did. That assumes that the bubbles are from that end of the sump...

I think that the skimmer definately contributes to (if not causes) the microbubbles. My fuge and sump are all together 4" long and my skimmer is set right before another baffle and then the return. I have read that too slow a water rate can cause the micro bubbles so I don't know at this point. Everyone seems to have a different spin on it.

How does a bubble tower work? Maybe that's what I need.

 

[DolphinLVR]

well you had stated your DT was 250 G, multiply that by 5 and i came up with 1250.

If you replace the 2 Koralia 4's (2400 GPH) with two Tunze 6100's (6300 Gph) with a multicontroller, then you would have more flow in the tank than what u currently have and you could keep them right where you have the Koralias

 

[Scooterman]

Reeflow makes the Uno series, they are pressure rated. I used the Wahoo but later converted it to a Marlin, whichever was the smaller rated. With a 3/4" outlet pipe it would push water 35 feet of head & without a doubt it will. This could blow water clean across your tank & back. If I was supplying return from a tank like your wanting to push water across the tank from one end then I'd do that with either one 3/4" outlet or maybe even plumb it all 1" from the pump to a tee with two 3/4" outlets. You can really screw with the way a pump works by sizing the plumbing. Anytime you get restrictions you make the pump work harder, so enlarging the inlet one size over & then the outlet you can get wicked streams of water flow. I was able to manage the flow because it supplied the chiller also & my tank is only 4ft long. That said I did go slower flow through the sump with a replacement pump, (Eheim 1262) because I had a CL also & didn't need it.

The pumps you mentioned aren't pressure rated, (not in the same manner) but people use them all the time for returns & high flow. The UNO series is more suitable for high head & high pressure needs, thus the reasoning on such a small outlet.
So with all of the different bars etc you have maybe you do need more Volume over more pressure, do consider that carefully before you purchase one, also call reeflow & I think Steve is the guy to talk to for questions & suggestions, this is his living.

 

[roblou]

jill: IMO, the primary thing you need to consider is how much flow can your overflow handle? The rate your overflow can flow to your sump WILL BE the limiting factor of how much flow you can return via your pump back to your display. Your overflow's flow rate will be a factor of the size & number of drains you have going to your sump.

To give you an example, if an overflow can handle 1200 gph and you try to use a 2000 gph return pump, it would end up sucking all the water out of the sump and causing the water to potentially overflow the display, because the water just can't drain fast enough to keep up with the pump. The only way to make it work in this scenario is to throttle back the flow of the pump until it's at a rate the overflow can handle.

So, without knowing more details it's hard to say for sure what pump you should get. But, at some point if the pump is too big, you'll need to cut the flow rate down anyways. If you know your overflow max rate, then you can check the mfgr's specifications and figure out which pump would work best. They usually have charts to figure out flow rate at different head pressure rates.

Also, what DolphinLVR said about flow rate thru the sump is also what I've read. Basically, to give your skimmer adequate time to process the water as it goes through the sump, the flow rate should be somewhere around 3 to 5 times your water volume. That's just a rule of thumb. The argument is that too much flow through the sump and the skimmer doesn't work as efficiently. Most would agree that the majority of your tanks flow should not be coming via your sump's return pump, rather it should be from other pumps such as powerheads, closed loops, etc.

HTH,

Rob

 

[Scooterman]

Actually, yes you do include the limits of your overflow but you have to accommodate for restrictions & other used of that return, she stated she was already using a 1700gph pump & it worked fine other than the micro bubbles.
The skimmer is either gravity fed or fed by the skimmer pump or possible the return but you can control that rate separately from the return flow in most cases, so that isn't the reasoning why most people suggest slower sump rates but for processing through a fuge or other filtering devices like a RSB etc. So all this needs to be considered, your 3 to 5 can be too much or too little to use as a general rule can be totally bogus!

 

[roblou]

yeah, i understand about accommodating for restrictions...that's what head pressure is, right?

All I'm saying is if she's using a 1700gph pump currently and considering upgrading to a 4800ghp hammerhead (roughly 3x more powerful pump), it may be too much pump, even with the 8 ft head pressure plus other restrictions. She won't know unless she does some calculations...

 

[Scooterman]

Yea with so much to consider it takes through planning to get it right & even then it can be difficult.

 

[ac7av]

I still think that trying to increase flow in this fashion is a wast of time imo. You will have to increase the flow so dramatically to make a noticeable change that it is doubtful the one overflow on the end of the tank could handle the flow. If you already have 6 outlet pipes in the tank with all the plumbing in place, we can’t see your plumbing setup but what would prevent you from mounting a pump in a closed loop on the outlet pipes closest to the side of the tank you are trying to increase the flow in? You can still have the pump down below floor with the rest of your stuff. You just need to isolate the pipes and run new plumbing alongside what you already have.

 

[TotalVapor]

jill,

I have been in the hobby for several years and one thing I know is that you do not want to use your return pump for flow. Since you have a swc-250 it will handle about 300 to 320 gallon tank. At the same time you need to make sure you are not turning your water over so fast your skimmer does not have enough time to work with the water. I would be tending to lean towards Scooterman's advice with using a pressure rated pump

 

[Scooterman]

To be clear normally suggesting a return with high head ratings isn't necessary & most people don't want that high flow through their sump, I don't disagree with that. One thing that I've noticed on overflows especially the larger ones is the slower the rate the less materials that go over to the sump, it is a catch 22. This case is somewhat different because to the type tank it is & using a pump that is pressure rated verses a 4,500 gph flow pump is can make a big difference. The big issue I have with this setup is the amount of outlets, this is counterproductive for a pressure rated return because you opposing the design of that pump. If you take a regular 4500gph flow pump & neck the plumbing down to ¾” or 1” then you basically have a high pressure pump, the difference is in impeller design & maybe slight changes in the motor but I think these are all the same in this series. Trying to do more than one thing with one pump is difficult & probably never as good as one or the other design. IMO a tank that long & deep I’d reduce the outlets to two & have them blow across the tank, a pressure rated pump would move the majority of the water from mid to upper region stirring things up greatly, you may need to deflect some flow away from corals though because it will start off a tight strong stream of water pushing through everything.
So if you’re dead set on going through many spray bars etc with this pump then the flow rated pumps would work better because they produce larger volumes of water flow, that is how they get their rating. You can disperse the flow everywhere & loose flow rate over volume. If you try to do it all on one pump I don’t see an improvement over what you already had because too many variables to accommodate by one pump.

 

[iroll253]

I would hook up the return as a closed loop using a bigger pump inserting a intake pipe in the tank. Then i would use the same return pump you have now for the fuge and sump, but run only one or two outlets at the most using sea swirls. That way yeah you might have an ugly intake depending on where you put it / your creativeness, but your getting the flow you need out of all those outlets under the rock plus the amount of pressure and diverse flow from your sump. Just an idea.