What size pump????

Hey Everyone,

Going to try to get my new 120 married with some water and salt this weekend!!! ;D I have a sump with Refigum. What size pump should I get. I was thinking of going with a MagDrive or a BlueLine? I heard the MagDrives can be a bit noisy though. Any recomendations?

 

i have a 125 with two mag 7's and they don't put out a lot of noise but mine are underwater get as big of a pump as your tank can handle do you have overflows?

 

It depends on how much flow you want through the sump/fuge and how much head loss you have between your tank and sump. How high will the pump have to pump water?

 

I have a Pro Clear 200 with a refigum. I am using an over flow box but I can not seem to find the flow rate on it. Last thing I want to do is buy a pump and then have to dial it back. however I'd rather replace the overflow box then not have enough flow. How many times an hour do you want to turn your tank over. I was thinking of gettng the Magdrive 1200 this would turn the tank over about 10 times an hour. Distance from sump to tank is about 4 ft.

 

how are you plumbing it elbows add to the head

 

was going to try to run PVC to the pump, then split off from there with a powerhead at each back corner of the tank.

 

You need to decide what type of corals you are going to keep. SPS require a lot of flow and that would call for a big pump. You always want to over size your pump because of head loss and possible expansion later on (reactors, chiller...etc). Heck of a lot easier to dial it back a little then try and get more volume out of it.

 

im running a mag 1800 on a 90g

if you go with 1 big pump you can run your return and other devices, such as reactors, chillers ect off it and avoid the heat and power consumption of multiple pumps

 

So true, a 90 elbow adds about 1' of head resistance, nice call.

 

If you split the return, I'd go with a pump in the 1200-1600GPH range. I would guess that your overflow would be about 600-800GPH.