Return pump ??

Hey everyone, I got a ?? I need a return pump for my sump and having trouble figuring out what size..120g dt, 30sump, 8 ft head... My dt only has one overflow, I believe it's rated at 600gph..say I wanted to get @10x my water volume, where would all the extra water go?? Should I only get a pump to do a lil more than my overflow?? I'm gonna add ph, thanks..

 

You could buy a bigger pump than you need and use a valve to throttle it back. this way if u upgrade you can reuse the pump and you also have room for adjustments when necessary.

 

Do a little research on pumps – I recommend Danner Mfg, solid product. Start looking at about 1000gph and check the head pressure and do your best to match the end result to your 600gph drain. Always install a union and a ball-valve as suggested above.

For more flow drop in Hydor Koralia, they are cost friendly, reliable and a rather powerful and nice design.

Edit: The Danner Mag Drive 9.5 is 950gph and at 8 foot of head pressure will deliver 600 GPH. I looked up the data here: http://www.dannermfg.com/infoS.asp#

 

Oh wait...if you know me I like my jokes -- and I missed an easy one ! you said you want to turn 1,200 GPH with a 600GPH drain and asked where would the extra water go....on the floor sily !!

 

If your drain is rated for 600 gph I would use a pump that does about 550-575gph at the head you need and make up the difference for ten turnovers with powerheads.

 

I think 10x through the sump is unnecessary, 5x is perfectly fine. But like was mentioned just put a valve on the output of your return pump so you can dial it in precisely. As for which brand, Eheim, Ocean Runner, MagDrive, all good pumps.

 

thats what i thought about the pump matching the drain.... i was wondering because i saw a lot of people getting huge return pumps and dialing back. i did not want to do that because i think it would be wasting electricity, maybe they wanted to upgrade later?? i will not be upgrading later, i just wanted to reconfirm that matching the drain was the way to go... if i overlooked something please let me know as im new to the hobby...

had a different ?.. are there any benefits to being able to drain more water out of ur tank?? i have a rr 120g, 1'' drain and 3/4'' return in a corner overflow compartment. if i turned them both into drains, it would be around 1000gph or something along those lines.. would that be something good to do?? i have a sump and its gonna have an octopus skimmer in it. the skimmer is gonna only skim so much correct? the other compartments would be a return and fuge..i dont think it will be much benefit to do two drains, but any thoughts would be very much appreciated!

thanks for all the help so far....

 

you can always put a ball valve or a gate valve on the pump to dial it down

 

Most centrifugal pumps (which is what most saltwater pumps are, if not all) will actually save electricity when they are dialed back. They will not use their full potential electrical draw when their output is restricted, don't restrict the input.

Also I think your logic is on the right track about your return pump vs skimmer processing. You gain nothing that I can think of by having a return pump that outperforms your filtration. Most of the time if you hit 5-10x your display tank volume with your return pump, after head loss, you will be just fine.

You will get some benefit from multiple drains though. Redundancy. Redundancy is one of the most important things when setting up a system. Eventually you WILL have something fail or get clogged up etc, and if you haven't planned for it, it could cost you some animals' lives, or at worst crash the whole tank. I can't say that for sure, maybe you're the sort of person that will check on the tank every few hours for the rest of your life and never sleep for long stretches, or go on vacation, or ever get injured and have to stay at the hospital etc.
Try and plan for redundancy or some sort of alarm/alert system for everything that goes wrong IMO. I wouldn't ever do a reef without a controller hooked up to the internet that can send alerts to my phone, but that's just me.
Think of how much time, money, and animal life you have invested in the whole system and how much money it might cost you to insure it with redundancy etc, it's a pretty basic return on investment calculation, I think.