Sump Turnover

ponokareefer · #1 12-30-2010, 04:19 PM

So my Rio 32HF return pump died this morning. It was rated at 1500 gallons/hour at 4 feet of head room. My sump is a 55 gallon, so my sump turnover was at 27. This seems excessively high as most posts I've read said it should be around 3-5 turnover. This pump was recommended to me when I bought the entire set up prior to knowing much about reef systems. Should I be getting a much lesser pump, or am I reading something wrong here? It just seems crazy that a prefered vendor on this site would recommend such a strong return pump.

phi delt reefer · #2 12-30-2010, 04:46 PM

I think your math is wrong - someone else correct me if i am doing this wrong.

125 display + 55 sump = 180 gallon total - 15% (i randomly selected this to compensate for lost water volume due to rocks, coral, account for water level not being at top of tank, etc.)

so you have lets say 153 gallons of water. turnover is corrected return pump rating divided by total SYSTEM gallons.

I am assuming you only had 4 feet of head with no 90's or divides - so we will use the full 1500gph rating

so 1500/153 - means you had 9.8x turnover

pump recommendation - I have heard a few Eheims and have a 1250 myself (not hooked up yet) - they are dead quiet. Maybe score a 1262 which is about 900gph (dont know the head rating) but that should slow down your flow to where you want it.

do you have a closed loop or sufficient power heads in the display to keep things moving nicely up top?

ponokareefer · #3 12-30-2010, 04:58 PM

Okay, that seems more like it. I do have 2 90's and it splits off at the end into a T, so I'm not sure what that does for slowing down the flow.

ponokareefer · #4 12-30-2010, 05:57 PM

You wouldn't have a link to a website for this phi delt reefer, would you?

phi delt reefer · #5 12-30-2010, 07:03 PM

head loss calculator;

http://reefcentral.com/index.php/head-loss-calculator

ponokareefer · #6 12-30-2010, 11:46 PM

Thank you for the info.

Myka · #7 12-31-2010, 12:27 AM

27x turnover through the sump is pretty excessive! If it is indeed about 10x like phi calculated that is acceptable provided you aren't getting microbubbles into the display. 6.1x turnover is supposed to be "perfect".