Pumps closed loop and power head questions.

[Katfsh]

Ok I have been looking at upgrading power heads to either tunze with controler or vortech. I currently have A 90 gal aga drilled with one overflow and I am using a mag 12 that is way oversized. I have to choke the pump back to keep from getting micro bubbles in the display. I Have four power heads in the tank now, maxi 600, maxi 1200, maxi 1200 with mod and a hydor nano. Today I thought about this, replace the mag 12 with a mag 3 that will be 350gph going through the sump and will probably be more than I have now with the mag 12 choked back. then I will take the mag 12 and use it as a closed loop going through a oceans motion and returning into the four corners of the tank. One down side to this is that my tank is not drilled for a closed loop so everything will have to be over the back of the tank. I am not crazy about seeing a piece of pvc in the tank but I guess that one piece of 1" pvc will be less distracting than four power heads, and I would use the grey pvc. What does everyone think of this? What are your opinions on closed loops vs power heads. One other advantage i see would be less heat, i know that the mag 12 choked back should be putting off way more heat than the mag 3 will be and there will not be the heat from the four powerheads.
Thanks everyone.

 

[Anonymous]

Matt_ has a thread somewhere here where he ends all his returns with clear tubing so that it does not stand out as much.


Just a thought.


As long as the back of the tank is covered, I see no harm in not having the tank drilled for closed loop. Just make sure that you have plenty of area on the "in" side so that you don't get anything important stuck to it.

 

[Katfsh]

Yeah I have seen that on here and forgot about it thanks I like that.

My main concern is the intake and how to do that with little visual impact as possible.

Does anyone here have any complaints about the oceans motion device?

 

[Katfsh]

What about the new scwd with the threaded 1" inlet and outlets anyone tried this yet?

 

[Katfsh]

Ok using a mag 12 on closed loop and mag 3 on sump return will that give me enough flow on mt 90 gal? doing the math thats over 15x turn over just does not seem like enough?

also i would like to have an oceans motions 4way on the closed loop but while i was working on the sprinkler system today got to thinking why could i not use a wavemaker and 24 volt power soucres and run my closed loop through three or four of these valves?

Another question, I own a aquaculture supply store and we have a lot of little giant pumps on the shelves that are out dated would it be crazy to use two of these on one closed loop, I think the largest gph on these are around 600 - 700. would have to use two to get the flow I want but I do not want alot of stuff in the tank.

 

[Anonymous]

I have an eheim 1262 and an Oceans Motions 4 way for my closed loop on my 58 gallon. Two of the four outputs go into the back wall, the other two come along the top of the tank edge and into the front corners. I kept the PVC above the tank edge, and just used lockline in the tank. You don't see the pvc, it's hidden by my canopy.

Someone here a while ago posted a picture of a hang-on-closed loop. I'll see if I can find it and post it. It was pretty slick.

Oh, I just won a vortech in a contest, so I'll be taking my closed loop out when I get to it.

B

 

[Anonymous]

should have guessed it was Melev...

http://www.melevsreef.com/closedloop.html

B

 

[Anonymous]

Oh, I just won a vortech in a contest, so I'll be taking my closed loop out when I get to it.

B

Do tell....MR event???? MP10???

 

[Anonymous]

A mag 3 will not pump very much water at 4' head. It pumps 300-350 at 0 head. Between head loss and elbows your sump will pump 200gph or less.

 

[Anonymous]

One other advantage i see would be less heat, i know that the mag 12 choked back should be putting off way more heat than the mag 3 will be and there will not be the heat from the four powerheads.

I doubt you'll see a meaningful heat reduction with the proposed setup even if your mag 12 is currently in-sump and you plan on switching it to an out-of-sump closed loop. The problem is that this is a pump that can be run both internal and external. The vast majority of the motor cooling on a pump with this design is being performed within the pump itself (your water is keeping the pump within it's temperature tolerances). Switching to a true external pump for your closed loop is a much better option if heat is a concern. Keeping the pump choked back has been reducing your heat input into the water since it is drawing less watts though - but I don't know how to factor that in or how much influence it has.

Adding up the powerheads and comparing them to the heat output of a mag 3 is a less direct comparison. I would imagine it would be a wash. However, I agree with the Anemonebuff - a mag 3 will be insufficient for your needs. 200 gph seems reasonable after head losses. It's not a lot of flow though.

Knowing if 15x/hr is enough...well that depends on a lot of factors...what is being kept and how the flow is dispersed in the tank. Running it through an oceans motions is very helpful IMO to make sure that everything in the tank gets a good blast from time to time. If you're looking to spend that much on equipment though, I would much prefer a propellor driven pump. Much more efficient, much less heat, high quality, and the Tunze/Vortech product lines have awesome programability. HTH!

 

[Anonymous]

Oh, I just won a vortech in a contest, so I'll be taking my closed loop out when I get to it.

B

Do tell....MR event???? MP10???

Kind of. Vendor raffle of their old display unit. MP40! Every $100 spent was one ticket. I bought 3 buckets of salt, new pH probe, and a new maxijet (for the beer making.) My one ticket got pulled out of the bucket!

B

 

[Ben1]

Kind of. Vendor raffle of their old display unit. MP40! Every $100 spent was one ticket. I bought 3 buckets of salt, new pH probe, and a new maxijet (for the beer making.) My one ticket got pulled out of the bucket!

Your luck is opposite mine, I got two speeding tickets this week and my dog got Lyme disease.

Depending on the situation the mag 3 will be close to 200gph. At 5' using 3/4" PVC its just at 198 gph. I would also assume as pumps get dirty they lose some so you are looking at a pretty slow rate of flow through the sump. FWIW I use a mag 3 to feed my frag tank that sits on a shelf up next to my display at about 6' through 1/2" tubing, I guess I still get 50-75 gph (the pump is old and dirty and the tubing is kinked) which is fine for the 20 gal frag tank. I also keep a koralia 4 and a koralia nano in there. So if you have the Mag 3 already and don't want to spend the money then it could work for awhile. I would go with something more like a mag 7 which with 5' of head, 4 90's, and 3/4" piping still gives 362 GPH.

A clean mag 12 will give about about 1000 gph if the pvc is 1" and there 4 exits, and 8 x 90's in the closed loop set up,

so 1000 + (mag 3 return) 200gph= 1200/90= 13.3 which IMO would be fine for softies or lps.

I do believe the more flow in any reef tank the cleaner it will stay. Less detritus will settle in the sand or rocks at high turnover rates and IME this allows your skimmer and other filtration methods to work better. Even if you go to the mag 7 you would be at a 15x turn over rate. I am not sure what you want to keep in this tank, I may have missed that. If you plan to do SPS you will need to step it up though, for my SPS tank I consider 35x the lowest I would go, my current tank (sps and some Acans on the bottom) is closer to 60-70x. JMO of course....

 

[Anonymous]

I do believe the more flow in any reef tank the cleaner it will stay. Less detritus will settle in the sand or rocks at high turnover rates and IME this allows your skimmer and other filtration methods to work better. Even if you go to the mag 7 you would be at a 15x turn over rate. I am not sure what you want to keep in this tank, I may have missed that. If you plan to do SPS you will need to step it up though, for my SPS tank I consider 35x the lowest I would go, my current tank (sps and some Acans on the bottom) is closer to 60-70x. JMO of course....

I'm going to piggy back on that as it is my opinion too. Now that I have had a high flow tank, I don't plan on ever going back - even if I load up with organisms that would prefer somewhat lower flow.