Water Circulation Question

[choog]

I have read that you need to pump 10-15 times per hour the gallon size of your tank. Say I had a 180 gallon tank. I'm aiming for 10X that per hour. So I need 1800 GPH. If my return pump flows at 1400 GPH and I had a powerhead in the tank that flowed 400 GPH then I get 1800.
I know that the return pump regulates how much water will be flowing through my sump. So. . . .there has to be a minimum GPH from the return to ensure you're getting the appropriate flow through the sump and filtration.
For instance, it would not be ok to have 3 powerheads running at 400 GPH giving me 1200 GPH in the tank then only 600 GPH from the return.
So my question. What is the amount of flow I need to get from the return? Since powerheads run at a lower wattage they are cheaper to run, which i would rather do.
This would be for a FOWLR aggressive tank. I may have misunderstood and flow might not be very important for a FOWLR.
Thanks in advance!

 

[sickboy]

The size of your return pump will be dictated by how much flow your overflow can handle. If your overflow is only rated at 600 GPH, then the 3 powerhead situation would be fine.

 

[mr_x]

i would choose a 1200 gph overflow for a 180, and a pump to match it, after head loss. i don't think a 600 is enough.
your first scenario won't work. you'll probably end up with algae and cyano issues at least. an optimal setup would be to have enough flow in the tank so that uneaten food and fish poop will be pulled out of the tank before it hits the sand bed and rock. also, you are going to want to limit dead spots in the tank, where there is no flow.
the turnover rate rule of thumb you mentioned is very vague. aim for what works best for the health of your tank.

 

[02wrxgt30r]

I am just a newb but i have always went by the rule of low flow in the sump like 3to5 time then a ton of flow from either powerheads or closed loop

 

[choog]

So is it safe to say that about half of your total water circulation should be in the tank itself and not through the sump?
However, what is the appropriate flow through the sump? The suggested values that I have seen I assume to be total amount of flow.