Flow Rate Question

[aws2266]

I'm setting up a 125g and have been looking at return pumps and flow rates. I'm a little confused, I've read you want a turnover rate of 10-20 times per hour. Do I want that from the return pump or is that a cumulation of my return pump and powerheads?

 

[mike550]

I'm setting up a 125g and have been looking at return pumps and flow rates. I'm a little confused, I've read you want a turnover rate of 10-20 times per hour. Do I want that from the return pump or is that a cumulation of my return pump and powerheads?

Turnover rate is how many times the water travels through the entire system so it’s basically the return pump. But I think the rule of thumb is 5-10 times per hour.

 

[Timfish]

As mentioned above turnover is how many times water travels throught the entire system and 5-10 times is fine. Individual corals have their own prefferences and additional powerheads or wavemakers can be used in the tank. FWIW here's a system that ran for 15 years that din't have any kind of external filtration and used just 3 power heads and a couple air pumps for water movement.

 

[RocketEngineer]

There’s two different types of flow to consider: flow in the display and flow through the equipment (sump). The first one is primarily for the critters and is handled by powerheads. The second ensures the water quality and can range widely. This second one is handled by the return pump(s). For equipment, as long as the water parameters throughout the system are fairly consistent (you don’t have hot/cold zones), even 3X might suffice.