Return Pump questions am i over doing it?

[southerntnreefer]

I know the most important flow is my flow pumps. So i have a Coral box dca 6000 ( 1600 gph) Assuming that its even, its 160 gph per click of the controller before any headloss. 72 gallon tank, im running on 3. so that is 480 gph before any head loss. Tanks a 72 gallon bowfront. I know i have enough, but could or should i stand to knock it down a click to give the skimmer more contact time? ( would also quiet the little bit of noise i have from where the overflow enters the sump and splash up from the bubble tube.

Thoughts?

 

[piranhaman00]

My turn my tank over 2x/hr if that helps, skimmer has more contact with water ect.

 

[dbowman5]

if you have wave pumps in the tank that could give you flow independent of your sump. i have seen information that for flow to corals or keeping food/detritus suspended the return pump can be a small portion of the total.

 

[southerntnreefer]

if you have wave pumps in the tank that could give you flow independent of your sump. i have seen information that for flow to corals or keeping food/detritus suspended the return pump can be a small portion of the total.

Im running a set of Octopulse 2s in the tank. ( Tanks cycling hence the questions of dialing it in. )

 

[southerntnreefer]

My turn my tank over 2x/hr if that helps, skimmer has more contact with water ect.

So in my case id be aiming for 144 Gph and be good?

 

[Vette67]

By my calculations, I should be getting around 800 GPH through my return pump on a 180 gallon system. So I am getting around 4x flow. My tank has been running this way for decades, and seems to be doing OK. As long as your overflows can handle the flow, then you should be fine. If your overflows are too noisy, then perhaps dialing the flow back a little bit would help with the noise. Like others said, make up for flow with power heads. You are at about 6X flow. If it were me, I'd dial it down to the 4X range.

 

[Kershaw]

I always have always ran 8-10 times water volume of display. I also try and make sure that skimmer matches heavy bio load for tank size.

 

[southerntnreefer]

By my calculations, I should be getting around 800 GPH through my return pump on a 180 gallon system. So I am getting around 4x flow. My tank has been running this way for decades, and seems to be doing OK. As long as your overflows can handle the flow, then you should be fine. If your overflows are too noisy, then perhaps dialing the flow back a little bit would help with the noise. Like others said, make up for flow with power heads. You are at about 6X flow. If it were me, I'd dial it down to the 4X range.

Its a DC pump, so i am limited there as far as what i can dial back. The overflow itself isnt noisy, im actually impressed by that from a Durso, but im getting some splash back up in the Bubble tube into the filter cup chamber, and id love to get rid of. If i can dial back to say 2 on the pump then so be it! ill just have to mark and pull out any water that i need to etc.

 

[southerntnreefer]

I dialed it back and it seems to be the trick. We are now running on a 2 of 10 on the return. Its not dead silent, but I didn't want that. It's quiet enough, and any noise hear now will be masked by the skimmer white noise anyways.