Ok, I know it might be a stupid question and I did know the answer at one point. I have a 72gallon bow front and wanted to know how many gph turn over should I have? I'm thinking about making an in-line wave maker and need to know how big of a pump to get. Thanks for any help.
blue hippo tang, flame angel, clown fish, 3 fire fish, soft corals, and upgrading to MH light to expand my corals. so I don't want max waterflow but mid-high.
I think you would want to have your water cycle your tank 3-5 times per hour. So you would want something in the range of 216gph and 350gph. But I could be wrong so wait till somebody posts after me to check to see if I am correct. I ran my 100 with a 350 gph and everything worked out for me
On all my tanks i gauged it @ 10x the total gallons of water, has always worked out well for me.
my 210 has a 2400gph return pump
my 55 has a 600 gph return pump
I would go higher for a reef, I have always had FO or FOWLR tanks.
If your doing a fowlr something along the lines of a mag drive 750gph should work.
well lets see my 30 gallon has
270gph powerhead
105gph powerhead
105gph powerhead
300gph return jet (est after head loss. pump is 480gph)
thats 780gph or 26X turn over with no ill effects. still have enough low flow area for mushrooms. Its very hard to overdue turnover in a reef tank. If something is blowing something too much reposition it. I wouldn't do any less than 10x turnover but I'd go for 15x (which is what I had before adding a sump).
thanks for the help. I have a 800 gph on my return from my sump plus I'm going to do the maxi mod to a 1200, which is 2??. Then the mod should help me pump some more flow and dispurse it.