Flow?

[whackamole]

I have a 29 gal long. Im planning to put a Odyssea WP-500gph Water Pump for the flow. It says the max height is 10ft. I will be pumping it up 4ft. Will this be enough? or too much? I have soft corals and lps.Any advice would be perfecto. thanks

 

[trigger11]

For keeping corals the general recommended turnover rate for flow is between 20X and 30X.
It is calculated as GPH / Tank Size (gallons)
So,
If all you had for flow is the 500GPH pump then your turnover rate would be
500 / 29 = 17.2X
With that you are getting pretty close so it probably would just depend on what kind of corals you wanted to keep then. Some require more flow than others. The good news is that you really cant have too much flow so could always put in another pump or two. The main thing is just to not have them blowing directly at the coral. Hope this helps.

 

[earlybird]

You are going to need more flow imo. You don't want any dead spots. Add to that 2 maxi jet 400s so you can have erattic flow and no dead spots.

 

[whackamole]

What if i got the 700gph pump. I am try to have no pumps and equipment in my tank so powerheads r no good. This pump will just be circulating from the sump back up to the tank

 

[trigger11]

700GPH pump
Turnover rate would be 24.13 which should be pretty good.
However, now the pump is pushing out over 600GPH. A 1 inch overflow pipe will handle up to 600GPH maximum. I believe a 1 1/2 pipe can handle 1200GPH but I could be wrong about that. I'm not sure what kind of overflow you have but I am guessing it is a HOB overflow? Probably with a 1" U-Tube? If so then it could handle 600GPH at the most.
With a 600GPH pump you would be at 20.7X for turnover.
In either case you may need to build a spray bar for the return water or otherwise it will be pretty powerful in a 29G system.

 

[earlybird]

Originally Posted by trigger11
700GPH pump
Turnover rate would be 24.13 which should be pretty good.
However, now the pump is pushing out over 600GPH. A 1 inch overflow pipe will handle up to 600GPH maximum. I believe a 1 1/2 pipe can handle 1200GPH but I could be wrong about that. I'm not sure what kind of overflow you have but I am guessing it is a HOB overflow? Probably with a 1" U-Tube? If so then it could handle 600GPH at the most.
With a 600GPH pump you would be at 20.7X for turnover.
In either case you may need to build a spray bar for the return water or otherwise it will be pretty powerful in a 29G system.
In my 29 I have a magdrive 700 gph return pump and 1 mj 900 with rotating head, and 1 mj 600. I have zero dead spots and my flow isn't crazy strong. I don't have corals jet but have some spare mj 400s in the event I need to change my flow. I tried just the return pump and wasn't happy with the flow as there were a lot of dead spots. I did not try a spray bar but I may just to break up my flow even more.

 

[whackamole]

My overflow is custom made by me and it is 1.6 i belive so that shold be a problem. I cant exactly picture what a spray bar is. Do u have a pic?

 

[trigger11]

I dont have a pic of a spraybar but picture a length of pvc pipe with holes drilled all the way down it. Basically, is just a way to evenly distribute the flow.
Another fun option might be to divide the return flow into 2 separate outlets using a T. Then you could hook up one those wavemaker switching boxes that stops the flow on one side briefly while the other side is open. I believe I am going to try this option myself in the new 55G I recently picked up.
But yeah, if you have 1.6" overflow pipe then will easily do the 700GPH.

 

[whackamole]

OK thanks for the help. I will be ordering it soon and i will tell u how it goes. Thanks again