basic water flow question

Hi there:

I'm reading that there should be approximately 10X water turnover rate in the reef aquarium. Am I understanding this correctly: If you have a 200 gallon tank, then 2000 gph should be flowing out of the aquarium into the sump and from the sump back into the aquarium? Intuitively that sounds like a *lot* of water coming down and up the pipes.......

2nd, what should the flow be through the refugium if the fuge is separate and upstream from the main tank?

Thanks,
frogdog

 

ive read some places say you should have 20 times...if your planning on keeping corals. if its a FOWLR then maybe 10 would be fine? im not an expert but ive done alot of reading. As for the fuge. some people have had sucess with no a slow fuge others apparently with a fast one.

 

depending on the corals its variable but you want around 50x turnover rate, this should be spread all over the aquarium, its not as much as it sounds.
so you end up with 200x50=10,000gph.
you want broad diffused flow so this shouldn't just be one or two powerheads..

edit: most of this flow should be hitting you lr to keep it clean and aid the nitrogen cycle
koralia is a good brand i would recommend a couple of there magnums for you, or if you could afford it vor tech powerheads. remember no one said this hobby would be cheap lol

 

LOL no joke... but well worth it!

 

You mean this hobby isn't cheap? LOL. So whether it's 10X or 20X or 50X, you're talking about that much water in and out of the aquarium per hour? Let's see, so 10,000 GPH is 5,000 GP half hour, 2500 per 15 minutes, 500 GP 3 minutes or over 150 per minute. I just find that hard to grasp. 150 gallons per minute coming into the sump and out of the sump. Am I the only one who thinks that's a lot of water volume?

 

Well the 150 gal/min doesnt only resrict your sump/fuge. Its the total illegid water movement flowing throughout your tank. IE, it would be your sump + POWER heads. The fact that its physically flowing in or out of your tank doesnt matter...

 

Thank you. That's what I needed to know. In that case, what is a reasonable amount/rate to move through the sump for a 120 Gallon tank, if the rest of the water flow rate can be added through power heads?

 

at least 1200 gph should be going out of tank, into sump, and back into tank for a 120 gal.

 

I run 2x 5,800 gph pumps on a 265g and for your fuge make it 1/10 gph as your tank is big. 100g tank = 10 gph through the fuge.

 

I have a 135g...I have total 6400 gph through my powerheads and my pumps. My main pump is 1200gph...I have a koralia mag 8 (which puts out a whopping 3400gph) but like others said you dont want just one or two powerheads doing all your flow. So I have a couple other koralia pumps in the tank, I have one on the left side (the big one) one in the middle and one on the right side. I also have another koralia that comes on only at night (my circuits during the day are spinning very fast) I also have a phosban/carbon reactors, my skimmer, and my UV sterilizer pumps running. So I am probably over 6400gph and I would like to figure out a way to increase that sometime!

Again that is not all flowing through your sump..it is total water movement in the tank