What is ideal to turn tank water over per hour?

Hello there,

Clearly I am a newbie, or my memory is mostly foggy. It has been about 7yrs since I had a tank. I am going to be setting up a 45g reef with a sump. I have a pump from my previous set up that I would like to run to return water to the display tank. It is a mag 9.5. Is that going to turn the water over too many times in an hour? Or return water too forcefully to the tank? I have a ball valve on it, if I restrict how much water it pumps will that wear the pump out prematurely?

Also, I was planning on running a protein skimmer and fuge. I found a great deal on an AquaC ev-120, with the general thinking that you can't really over skim. HOWEVER, the footprint on the skimmer is really going to eat into how much space I will have for a fuge. Should I skip the larger skimmer for a larger fuge, or go for it with the skimmer and have the fuge small.

I will also have a canister that I plan on running just carbon, or turn that on after I have done some house keeping. It will run independently of the sump.

 

I go with 5-10x the display tank volume for flow through the sump. I think a mag 9.5 is too big if you run it wide open, if you dial it back it should work. AFAIK restricting the output does not put extra wear and tear on the pump.
I'm not 100% sure but I believe the more it's dialed back it actually will use less energy, it only works as hard as it needs to.

My thoughts on refugiums are on page 2 here. I would say go with the skimmer.
http://www.3reef.com/forums/new-hobby/too-new-know-what-refrigrium-78233.html

 

Restricting a centrifugal pumps output does not harm it, in fact many times it improves the pump efficiency by adding head which is what you are doing.
I stay with 5-7x display tank volume for my return pump but also base it on the size of the sump too. You do not want high velocity passing through the sump or you run the risk of microbubbles being carried back to the display so make sure the sump size is sufficient too. I have a 30G long AGA for a sump with 3 baffles between the overflow and return sections to dissipate bubbles and use a Ocean Runner 3500 as the return pump. I wouldn't go any smaller than about that if possible for your sump.

 

Thanks so much for the feedback. Unfortunately my 45g is more of a cube shape. 24x18x24 footprint, so I think the largest size sump I could go with is a 10g, which is 20"L. I was planning on doing some customization with baffles.

OK, 5-8x, here is the 1 million dollar question, how do I measure my flow to make sure that I am not going over that?

I think that the footprint of my protein skimmer is 8x8 ish, and I need 5x8 for the return pump, which would leave 6"ish x 10" for refugium. Is that enough room to make it worth it? Is it difficult to run the ps next to the sump? I feel like if I did that I might be messing too much with gravity and my checks and balances might be off is the pump failed.

 

Most pumps have a published pump curve which shows what it is capable of pumping at various head pressures of heights. You can usually figure 4 to 5 feet of head with most systems by the time you add up the vertical distance between the sump water level and the display water level plus friction losses for things like pipe or tubing, valves and fittings.
Many sites have a headloss calculator and there is probably one here over on the left side of the main page.
Pumps are usually advertised at their maximum pumping rate and no head or height. When you start adding height or head to the dicharge the pumping rate drops off and usually quits pumping water at a point of maybe 6 to 12 feet depending on the pump. The Mag 9.5 pumps 950 GPH open discharge, 800 at about 4 feet and 200 at 12 feet. Its probably too big for your use especially in a 10G sump as its not very small. A Mag 5 or 7 is probably better suited for what you need but I would look at pumps like the Eheim 1260 or OceanRunner 2500 if you need a new pump. Both are much quieter, run cooler, use less power and are very reliable (as is the mag if you can get around the heat, power and noise).

 

I was aware of the head drop off, but knew the pump would still output more than what I needed. Probably is best to get a new pump with a smaller footprint though. I will check those out.

Do you have any thoughts on running the protein skimmer outside of the sump? I havent actually started to fit everything together and set up. Want to have all my ducks in a row as to avoid massive amounts of water on my newly installed hardwood floor. I wanted the water draining from the dt to run the the ps first. Since I have a cube, what about putting a smaller tank next to the 10 gallon tank that the dt could drain into for the ps, then the ps would discharge into the 10 fuge?

I will be running an AquaC ev-120

 

Two tanks should work well. Depending on the amount of room in your cabinet you should consider two seperate tanks like maybe a 5g fuge fed with a Tee and a ball valve and then gravity fed back to the sump. This way you can have about 10x turnover in your sump and a lot less in the fuge. Refugiums are most efficient when provided with a slow flow. Theres pics of my setup in the show off your fish tanks page (Sorry I dont know how to put a link on here)

 

If you have two small tanks as the sump/refugium/skimmer etc its best to tie them together with hard plumbing and bulkheads as its impossible to get a skimmer pump and a return pump to match flows thus one would be overflowing while the other is pumping dry.
Acrylic is cheap, you might find a friend who does acrylic work and could construct a custom footprint sump for you that would fit under your stand. The larger the better for many reasons including more water volume for a more stable system, a larger return pump chamber so it does not require multiple topoffs per day and more room for a skimmer, heater, probes, reactors, macroalgaes etc.
A hang on back skimmer would work on the 10G sump as long as the tank is tall enough. If not a 15G has the same footprint but is taller.

 

That was my concern that the ps and return pump would not be running the same output and throw off equilibrium. Trying to think how to get around that. You have both got me thinking.

What do you think of a custom made smaller vessel that is elevated that the ps is in, with a bulkhead that drains into a 15g sump via gravity?

might be easier to try and build a custom sump eh?

 

I would use a hang on skimmer before going with the gravity drain setup. I like to keep things simple and eliminate the odds of a flood or overflow. Keep it all in one sump or vessel. Another otion might be a Rubbermaid storage container, I see them used quite a bit and they come in dozens of sizes, some of which may fit under your stand.