quick question on pump and skimmer

rotorhead

rotorhead

Member
I am building a 180 reef and wanted to know if a 1800gph pump for return is fine a will be supplementing with powerheads. Also is a skimmer with a 250gl rating enough I was originally going bigger on both but was worried about them taking to much space in the refugium I am building, especially the skimmer footprint. So I decided to go smaller on the skimmer instead of sacraficing refugium space.
 
joncat24

joncat24

Active Member
mag 18 will do fine for the pump
what type of skimmer are you looking at?? some are rated way higher than they can actually do.
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
ASM G3 would handle the tank at a moderate stocking level IMO......I would mod the skimmer a bit, with the mesh wheel mod, and the gate valve to make tuning the skimmer a whole lot easier.....I would even look at down the road turning the standard skimmer into a recirc which could easily be done.....
As far as return pump you first have to determine what your overflows on the tank will handle....Utimately you don't want tons of flow through the sump, being 3-5x tank volume through the sump, with the additional flow coming from your powerheads.
 
al mc

al mc

Active Member
In my opinion a mag 18, or better, a 24, with several pvc 'T's' that allow you to divert as much of the water as you need back into the sump/refugium would be a good idea. You can fine tune how much water your 'drain' in the DT can handle by diverting some thru valves/ts.
IMHO you will tax an ASM3. Personally I would size up to the ASM4 or 4x. As joncat noted most are sized very..shall we say..aggresively by their companies. I would always get a skimmer rated for 1.5-2x your tank volume.
If you are having problems with space in the sump/refugium you might consider running a sequence pump out of the sump.......and an out of sump skimmer like an MRC. The MRC2R should be able to handle your system.
 
rotorhead

rotorhead

Member
the overflows are from a 180rr rated at 600gph each with 1" plumbing I'm assuming, so was thinking of 1.5" plumbing
 
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