how many times a hour should the water go through the sump?

[banditpowdercoat]

That goes back to what I was saying about Every tank being different. If you do not want to use Powerheads, consider a closed loop. An intake is real easy to guard. Best thing is T the intake off a few times, then there is little suction at all the intake inlets, not just one. If you flow to much through a sump, regardless of skimmer, your going to introduce microbubbles. part of a sump's design is to be slow enough, add time/passages to let the microbbbles escape.

[banditpowdercoat]

No, don;t use sponges, Nitrate factories. Use Egg crate. If you have 1 1/2" CL intake, but you split it to T's. you now have 4 intakes, each one had a real low suction. an amemone won't get sucked in if you cover the opening with egg crate.

But were getting off the OP's topic here I think.

[Ryan]

Half the problem now seems to be everyone going big display tanks and small sumps. Back when sumps were 1st introduced they were always as big or bigger than the display. Now I am seeing 75 gallons with 20 gallon sumps, which is much too small.

[banditpowdercoat]

Ya, my 150g with a 300g sump would be strange LOL

[mr.wilson]

Originally Posted by Ryan

Half the problem now seems to be everyone going big display tanks and small sumps. Back when sumps were 1st introduced they were always as big or bigger than the display. Now I am seeing 75 gallons with 20 gallon sumps, which is much too small.

I think a lot of people get caught up in the challenge of fitting as much equipment as possible in a small footprint. If you have the space, always go for as much system volume as you can fit. You can pick up 500 gallon water tanks for a lot less money than the equipment it would take to give you the same water quality. Even daisy chaining a bunch of 50 gallon plastic drums and keeping them in a cool place works well as the flow rate doesn't need to be very fast... oh here we go again