water flow for 125g reef tank

jchase1970

Member
For a reef tank how much flow show be idea. I've seen it taid more is better, but I have also seen that 2 much can hurt somethings.
Also do you figure the total gals of the whole system or just the size of the display tank?
 
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eric b 125

Guest
in a reef tank you should aim for 20X-30X turnover per hour. that's the whole system, not just tank volume. say you have a 50 gallon tank and 50 gallon sump, 100 gallons total. you'd want 2000-3000 gph water movement. this is a very generalized rule, though. it depends on what you keep, and how you're moving the water (you wouldnt want 30X turnover going through only your sump). too much flow can hurt things like sensitive corals (these corals are placed away from direct current) and can stir the sandbed up too much.
 

gill again68

Active Member
The other thing to consider here also is start with getting the flow through the sump set correctly first. This will mostly depend on how much flow your overflow system can handle. From there you can add either a CLS or power heads to make up the difference to give you that targeted 20x to 30x or whatever you decide you want of flow in your display tank.
 
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