Moving H2O out and in again ?

CoralBee · 10/10/2007, 01:37 PM

This is my first posting to these forums...

I'll get to the topic in a sec but as it's my first post, a little background...

I have been messing around with the aquarium hobby for about five years and setup my first aquarium 18 months ago. It is a 150 gallon aquarium (72X18X24) currently housing 1 Naso Tang, 1 Powder Blue Tang, 1 Flame Angel, 1 Coral Beauty, 1 Tomato Clown, 1 Six Lined Wrasse, 1 Firefish, 1 Lawnmower Blenny, 1 Royal Damsel (thinks it owns the tank), and a Four Stripe Damsel. Plus I have 2 Cleaner Shrimp, 2 Peppermint Shrimp, a Sand Sifting Starfish and a huge cleaning crew of various snails and crabs.

The tank has about 120 lbs of Totoka live rock on about three inches of the finely crushed aragonite. Water is also filtered with a Rena Filstar xP4. Water movement comes from 2 Aquaclear 110/900gph powerheads. Lighting is supplied by a 72" Aqualight Pro 3x150W HQI/4x96W PC/4x1W Lunar.

This has worked well for me to this point. But, I would like to go a little deeper into this hobby and believe that it is time to add a sump, skimmer and refugium.

This brings me to the topic...

I am having a difficult time resolving the water flow as it should leave the tank and return to the tank.

I have a setup in mind:
33 long as the sump with 3 sections. The first section will receive the water and contain a Euro Reef RS180 skimmer. The second section will be the refugium. Third will be the return pump(s).

The Aquaclear powerheads are big and ugly, I want to use them as the return pumps in the sump and replace with two Koralia 4s in the main aquarium. The aquaclear pumps are rated at 900 gph each, I'd like to use both if possible for water movement. The pump on the skimmer is the modified genx 4100 rated at a little over 1000 gph.

I don't know which siphon overflow I should get? Is there a set formula to determine this? Do I need the tanks output and input flow to be equal? Any baffle height recommendations?

Please, help me out.

10/10/2007, 01:37 PM	#1
CoralBee Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Raleigh, NC Posts: 2	Moving H2O out and in again ? This is my first posting to these forums... I'll get to the topic in a sec but as it's my first post, a little background... I have been messing around with the aquarium hobby for about five years and setup my first aquarium 18 months ago. It is a 150 gallon aquarium (72X18X24) currently housing 1 Naso Tang, 1 Powder Blue Tang, 1 Flame Angel, 1 Coral Beauty, 1 Tomato Clown, 1 Six Lined Wrasse, 1 Firefish, 1 Lawnmower Blenny, 1 Royal Damsel (thinks it owns the tank), and a Four Stripe Damsel. Plus I have 2 Cleaner Shrimp, 2 Peppermint Shrimp, a Sand Sifting Starfish and a huge cleaning crew of various snails and crabs. The tank has about 120 lbs of Totoka live rock on about three inches of the finely crushed aragonite. Water is also filtered with a Rena Filstar xP4. Water movement comes from 2 Aquaclear 110/900gph powerheads. Lighting is supplied by a 72" Aqualight Pro 3x150W HQI/4x96W PC/4x1W Lunar. This has worked well for me to this point. But, I would like to go a little deeper into this hobby and believe that it is time to add a sump, skimmer and refugium. This brings me to the topic... I am having a difficult time resolving the water flow as it should leave the tank and return to the tank. I have a setup in mind: 33 long as the sump with 3 sections. The first section will receive the water and contain a Euro Reef RS180 skimmer. The second section will be the refugium. Third will be the return pump(s). The Aquaclear powerheads are big and ugly, I want to use them as the return pumps in the sump and replace with two Koralia 4s in the main aquarium. The aquaclear pumps are rated at 900 gph each, I'd like to use both if possible for water movement. The pump on the skimmer is the modified genx 4100 rated at a little over 1000 gph. I don't know which siphon overflow I should get? Is there a set formula to determine this? Do I need the tanks output and input flow to be equal? Any baffle height recommendations? Please, help me out. Last edited by CoralBee; 10/10/2007 at 01:46 PM.