Tank and sump turnover rate

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by eli@fijireefrock.com

Call me old school or crazy but it worked for me in years with no issues and I believe if it isn't broke why fix it.
Another belief of mine is that everyones main tank is loaded with fish, fish poop, mixed corals,coral slime and all types of bacteria and to top things high lighting to promote growth in all aspect why leave the water on low turnover when you can keep it cleaner with other means through the sump.(skimmer,carbon,floss,maybe GFO,socks,...)
I have seen tanks with low turnover maybe 5-7 times with more problems than not.

The idea of the turnover rate is that a protein skimmer has a pump that draws water at a set speed , the pump has a rating which means it can only draw so much water ever , so pushing water past the skimmer faster then it can draw only makes the skimmer less efficient not skim more water. Skimmer pumps don't pull that kind of wat and lucky to be a fraction of that. So what we intended to remove simpy goes back to display

Now if a guy says i want to run more water through my sump say for more water to pass through the filter floss or socks then fine......but I would suggest more filtration in the way of more floss or double socks (yes you can double socks) vs more water.

Having water flow by heaters with less contact time will allow heaters to work harder as well thus having them run more ( a stagnant pool wil warm faster then a flowing river)

I dont see how pushing more water through the sump would clean any faster than pushing less wat would.


There's a good article on advanced aquarist I'll see if I can dig up that talks about turnover rates.

So does this mean a tank will have issues or even be unsuccessful .....no of course not but it's like buying a skimmer for a 100g system that's rated to 125g vs buying one rated for 175g ......might not make a huge diff but nothing wrong with getting the most bang for your buck right?

When we talk about medias that bind then yes more water through the phosphate reactor will result in more efficiency and same for carbon , how ever most people with larger tanks aren't using gravity to feed there gfo or carbon.