Powerhead Flow Study - Advertised vs Actual

I picked up my first MP40 ES and was able to swap 2 back mounted pumps for one side mounted. Deciding if I wanted another MP40 or an MP10 for the opposite side of the tank I came across a very interesting article on AdvancedAquarist.

Basically, Sanjay Joshi and a colleague performed a very detailed study with a number of popular powerheads on the market in an effort to determine actual flow rates versus their advertised rates.

The article is very well written and most definitely worth a read.

In the case of Vortechs, to summarize:

MP40: 18.2% more flow than advertised(3200 GPH). Actual: 3781 GPH
MP10: 56.2% more flow than advertised(1575 GPH). Actual: 2460 GPH.

Beginning to think the MP10 might be actually be enough for my situation!

Have a read:
Feature Article: Experimental Comparison of Measured Flow Output of Aquarium Propeller Pumps — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

Summarized Results from the article: (credit to Advanced Aquarist)

 

Interesting article. No wonder I have heard people tuning them down. I hate to see how overpowered the MP60 really is.

 

http://www.3reef.com/forums/general-reef-topics/new-article-measuring-propeller-pump-output-115026.html

http://www.3reef.com/forums/filters-pumps-etc/power-head-gph-study-115191.html

 

...about 1,000gph over what it was rated for. lol.

 

Whoops - quickly went through the first few pages of the Pumps forum and didn't see it posted.. Maybe went too fast - maybe didn't go far enough. Sorry.

 

I wouldn't expect all MP to perform like the test unit did. I would think it would be more in line with the MP40 performance.

 

I've got an elephant memory and I spend too much time on here.

It's still a very interesting study and topic, however.

 

The koralia 5 and 7 ran the same lol. Need a 7 buy a 5 and save 40 bucks. Cant beat that at Krogers.

 

The 7 appears to be a bit more powerful, but maybe by 150gph (more than the K5) tops.