GPH for sump pump return

ronboy

Reefing newb
i am having 1 hole drilled for overflow boxes in each corner of my tank.my tank is 150 gallons,im not sure on how much gph i should have for the return.mostly torch,frogspawn,hammer,xenia ect. type of corals in the tank...
 
well honestly,i was goin to buy one tomorrow.im confused cause i have seen 125 gallon tanks with 30 gallon sumps,and some with 80 gallon sumps...what would you run?
 
A 55 gallon tank would work well for you and a pump rated for around 400 or so gallon per hour would be fine. Eheim makes a good pump, it can be used internally as well as externally. I would decide what fish and coral you want to keep and then decide the equipment as the equipment will decide on the things you want to keep.
 
I would use Tunze on a 7095, you are looking at a lot of money, but the resell value remains extremely high and you won't find a better pump. If you are concerned about money then some Koralia 4's would work, but you aren't going to see the flow you will with Tunze. If you will be keeping softies then I would get the koralias, if you want SPS then the Tunze are a solid investment.
 
I think a 55g sump is quite a lot for a 150g tank. Biff is using a 55g refugium on her 240g tank.

I think you could easily get by with a 30g long or a 40g breeder for your 150g tank. But, consider I've never had a reef tank that big, so I could be completely full of :pooh:.
 
the bigger the sump the better. are you drilling two 1" holes? 1 inch holes are good for 600gph. that times two....well, you do the math. so, a pump for 1,200gph or slightly less would be ideal. if you get one slightly larger you will have to plumb in a tee with a ball valve to dump the excess flow back into the tank.
 
Yeah, i was going to say 400 gph is way too low for that kind of sump with 2 overflows. I'm running a 600 gph overflow and a 700 gph pump but by the time the back pressure on the pump is taken into consideration its about right. You could have a less powerful pump than your overflow, in fact I think I would rather have a smaller return pump than my overflow. so basically all the water that gets put back into the tank will overflow instantly, so if your returning 1000 gph, only 1000 gph will be able to overflow into the sump. (not sure if you get it, im attempting to make sense here, but i'm not an expert) Hopefully someone will verify my hypothesis here, with the overflows it cant flow more than the pump can handle returning if the water isnt high enough to overflow... And if you have a return pump that is doing too much work, you can throttle it back with a ball valve, or like Biff suggests, make a T with a ball valve to let the excess water back into the sump, instead of just making more pressure.
 
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