pump flowrate

kittyhazelton

kittyhazelton

I eat sushi
Aug 15, 2005
198
0
0
42
Hartford, VT
elfwood.lysator.liu.se
Ok, I'm thinking of setting up a 20gal aquarium as the sump for my new 110gal aquarium. My question is, what is the minimum flowrate I should be looking for as far as the pump goes. I currently have 350gph on the sump for my 55gal, so I'm wondering if I am looking for like, a 700-1000gph for the 110gal. Woul 700gph be sufficient? The tank is a FOWLR with no major plans to botherwith corals or anything like that. There are cureently only going to be about 4 small-med size fish in the tank with a yellow tang being the largest fish. I will be purchasing an overflow box that is sufficient for the flowrate of the pump.
I do also plan on having a few decent powerheads in the tank to help with circulation, but I'm still not sure how much water I should be filtering per hour. Is there like a standard guidline to follow? If the 110 is twice the size of the 55 I'm assuming it requires twice the flowrate. It this a correct assumption?
 
It depends on what will be in the sump. Enough to feed the skimmer and whatever else is there. Since you will be depending on the powerheads to help with circulation, the flow through the sump isn't as critical.

A general guideline for circulation is about 10-15X turnover per hour. On my reefs, I have usually had about 20X.
 
Kitty, a 20 gal sump is small for this system (if your power goes out it may be physically too small, I used a 29 gal sump for my 125 and it filled up 3/4 at times)... if you are going through the trouble to do this, consider making the sump a 40 gallon long (it won't cost that much more for a bigger tank) a section of the sump can house a refugium, detritivores, macro algae and/or deep sand bed; these will be helpful in reducing nitrates and dissolved organics/nutrients in your fish system, also producing constant supply of live micro food for fish, etc. If you decide to get into predators like Lionfish later, the dissolved organics/nutrients will be a big issue.
 
Using a 40 would be great, but I'm using a 20 long as a sump/fuge on a 90 right now. Works fine, and I live in an area with routine power outages. Just have to be sure you keep the level at a point where there's room for the excess.
 
I have not had any power outages here recently, but just in case I keep my sump pump running on a small UPS. I'll probably plan on doing this with the new tank too just in case.
I was thinking a pump rated for 1200gph for sump. Probably still gonna go with a HOB skimmer because the stand I want doesn't really have much clearance under it for things to stick up. and I want it to be fairly easy to clean stuff out when I need to.
 
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