So confused about pumps...

[jimmyjames]

Hi everyone...

I have a 180gallon reef tank....
My sump that i am building for it is 75 gallons...

The overflow will be around 1600 gph...
I need to get a pump... external pump to be exact.
I need recommendations...

Currently... what i am looking towards is:

1. ReeFlo Uno Pump - Marlin It says it will do about 1800 gph at a 6 feet head height. (best price: $409.99 from www.copperfish.com (has anyone ordered from here yet?))
2. Mag drive 18 - this is questionable...it is not recommended for external i think... and it doesn't seem to push as much gph?... it is cheaper by at least 50%...

I need some advice from you all.
Need a reliable pump that is quiet....

Thank you in advance.

[jkapit]

Originally Posted by jimmyjames

Hi everyone...

I have a 180gallon reef tank....
My sump that i am building for it is 75 gallons...

The overflow will be around 1600 gph...
I need to get a pump... external pump to be exact.
I need recommendations...

Currently... what i am looking towards is:

1. ReeFlo Uno Pump - Marlin It says it will do about 1800 gph at a 6 feet head height. (best price: $409.99 from www.copperfish.com (has anyone ordered from here yet?))
2. Mag drive 18 - this is questionable...it is not recommended for external i think... and it doesn't seem to push as much gph?... it is cheaper by at least 50%...

I need some advice from you all.
Need a reliable pump that is quiet....

Thank you in advance.

I have a 175 tank and used a single Iwaki 55RLT. It is rated at 1000 GPH and I think that is a good amount of flow through the sump for that size tank. Then if you want more flow in the tank put in a couple power heads.

I've run the Iwaki for 7 years with out a single problem. It is quiet but not silent. If you put it in a cabinet you will still here it although barely. I would recommend putting a PC fan/exhaust fan in the cabinet to draw warm air moving out of the cabinet otherwise it will add at least 5 degrees to your tank temp.

[das75]

A Reeflo Dart at head will flow about 2000gph (can always valve back) and bit cheaper than the Uno. No first hand experience but there's also the Snapper Hybrid, should also be around your target flow.

Have a Dart on a CL directly below my display, not silent but a very quiet hum. Here's hoping a fellow reefer close by with one, will invite you over for a listen.

Not big on putting something up haven't tried but might look up Velocity pumps, spec'd around 30db (that's very quiet)

Though I'm on your side (high flow from return pump) many will put forward low flow through sump, as low as gph rating of skimmer, for display turn over, power heads or CL.

(btw had a Iwaki 70RLT as a basement return, a excellent pump but a screamer)

[jimmyjames]

Jkapit: Thank you for the comment. I will take your advice on the fan/exhaust. I am doing a reef tank with sps and other softies along with fishes....I heard the Iwaki is pretty loud?...

das75: Thank you for the invite for a listen... i will take a look at the dart.

I am once again confused.... I talked to my LFS and they told me basically the pump returning clean water to tank needs to flow at a lower gph than my overflow gph.... is this true?....

Thank you....

[das75]

not sure the the LFS is getting at, what you pump out of the sump is overflowed back to the display, it's a matched loop.

[scubasteve06]

Sump pump no matter the brand should be matched as close as possible to your overflow. Most will say low flow thru the sump as in 3x-5x turnover tank volume through the sump, and then achieve your desired flow rate in the tank with powerheads and/or a closed loop.

[jdpiii3]

I was running a Blueline Aqua 70 1700gph pump on my 150 for many years never knew it was heating the water as much as it was. If I had to figure it was around 4-5 degrees, and wow was it loud. A couple months back I upgraded to a Reeflo Super Dart Gold, it uses half the amount of power doesn't add any heat and to see if its running you have to actually touch the pump its that quiet.

[jimmyj7090]

Originally Posted by jimmyjames

Jkapit:
I am once again confused.... I talked to my LFS and they told me basically the pump returning clean water to tank needs to flow at a lower gph than my overflow gph.... is this true?....

Thank you....

Your overflow will drain exactly as much as your pump pushes up to the display until the max capacity of the overflow is met. If the max capacity is exceeded, your display will flood and your sump/pump run dry. (that's what the LFS meant)

You should use a pump that moves less than the overflow can handle, or use one that matches or slightly exceeds it AND throttle the pump back a bit with a ball or gate valve on the output of the pump.


Mag pumps are cheap because they are, well, cheap. Look at the flow chart for that pump, it doesn't handle pressure anywhere near that of the other pumps being discussed (and they are loud, and often very unreliable on restarts).

[5ft24]

Originally Posted by jimmyjames

Jkapit: Thank you for the comment. I will take your advice on the fan/exhaust. I am doing a reef tank with sps and other softies along with fishes....I heard the Iwaki is pretty loud?...

das75: Thank you for the invite for a listen... i will take a look at the dart.

I am once again confused.... I talked to my LFS and they told me basically the pump returning clean water to tank needs to flow at a lower gph than my overflow gph.... is this true?....

Thank you....

they are correct... if your overflow is rated 1600 GPH and your pump is really pushing 1600 GPH, algae, a snail, any small thing can cause your main tank to overflow all over the floor...
They say Ideally, run the overflow no more than 80% of it's rated capacity...
so 1600 * 80% = 1280 GPH.

[jkapit]

Originally Posted by jimmyjames

Jkapit: Thank you for the comment. I will take your advice on the fan/exhaust. I am doing a reef tank with sps and other softies along with fishes....I heard the Iwaki is pretty loud?...

das75: Thank you for the invite for a listen... i will take a look at the dart.

I am once again confused.... I talked to my LFS and they told me basically the pump returning clean water to tank needs to flow at a lower gph than my overflow gph.... is this true?....

Thank you....

I don't really know which is better, High flow or low flow through the sump. I read an article a number of years ago where they claim it just doesn't matter, but since you want to keep SPS I would guess the more flow the better. Here are a few additional comments on the topic:

1)As far as Iwaki goes, the 55RLT is a reasonably quiet pump to put in a stand, it is magnetic so it cannot leak and runs at 3000 RPM so the noise is higher pitch than a hum and I never found it annoying. It does generate some heat if not ventilated. The Iwaki 70RLT is very loud because of the much larger fan. I would not recommend that pump below a tank in a cabinet.

2)I have an oceanic tank with two 1" overflows, I would think the overflows would struggle to keep up with 2000 GPH. My guess is 1500GPH would be the max due to the shape of the overflow grates. I also built custom stand-pipes to limit the noise of the overflows and not sure if they would limit the flow.

3)Since I put a refugium in line with my sump, I did not want super high flow going through it and figure about 1000 GPH seemed reasonable. I am feeding my skimmer with a 300GPH pump so not sure what advantage other than how many times the water passes through the filter bags a higher flow pump would provide.

Good luck with your set up.

[viggen]

Low flow through your sump is what you want to do. Your sump is only the size of a 75g & if you put a lot of flow through there you will get LOTS of bubbles..... Also depending on the type of sump (refugium, etc) you want low/slow flow so the stuff in there can do it's job. To fast & it will not clean the water.....

The velocity T4 I use on my 210g tank, they are totally silent. You get 800-1000 gph which is a good number for you to hit, even possibly on the high side of flow you want through your sump but again, if noise is a issue it's totally silent.

I believe the Uno Marlin is a pressure pump, it's for 20ft of head pressure, running through canister filters and all that stuff. If you are just going directly from sump to tank you do not want a pump like that. They are loud (iwaki's are excellent but they are noisy 55/70/100 way to loud) & like the uno is made for pushing water up a floor or two in a house &/or running canister filters. Not what you want. If a iwaki is what you want & if you need it to be quiet a 30rlxt is as big as I would go. I have used numerous iwaki's over the years & the 40's are way to loud for me, that is if the tank is in a house.

Like others mentioned the 1600gph for the overflow box is the MAX, you do not want to run more then that or even close to that especially on a tank your size. Get a pump that will turn your tank over 2-5x's a hour. Then stick powerheads or stuff like tunze's, vortec's, etc inside the tank to get extra flow in there. Or you can drill the tank and use a dart/snapper for a closed loop.

On my tanks, my 210g used a velocity T4 going through a old school wet/dry (both fish only tank) so I get +/- 4x's turnover. The 475g uses a RedDragon 12m3 which is suppose to do 2400-2600gph with 500-800gph of that flow going directly to my skimmer out of the overflow box. I haven't purchased them yet but one of these days I will add vortec's to each tank for added flow.

I am also not a fan of MAG's, like someone else stated they are cheap for many reasons. They get loud as they become more powerful so since noise is a issue I would skip them.

[jimmyjames]

Thank you all for the advice...

With my eshopp PF-1800 overflow box....
I went and got the:

Dolphin diamond abrasive 4750 Type-3 pump...

waiting all my plumbing to dry before i plug it in.....