Skamman23
New Member
Hey reefers, what is the industry norm for proper gph of flow per gallon of water for a tank? I'm putting together a 72g and want to make sure I get the right sized return pump. Thanks!
Return Pumps
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Bad Company
Well-Known Member
Anything that will supply between 400-700+ GPH should be fine. Remember a gate valve to fine tune the flow you want. I have an Eheim 1262 on my 63 gallon cube, and I throttle it back to about 550GPH. It cycles my sump fast and provides additional flow for my DT. I would recommend oversizing a bit and valving it back to what you want. With head hieght, elbows, and other restrictions, it would be a real bummer to plumb it all in and not be happy with the flow.
5 times the display volume after headloss is a very common answer. It is good to go slightly larger and install a ball valve on the discharge side of the pump to fine tune it to your overflow versus undersizing and being stuck.
Even using a pump for your return, which normally is 600-900 gph, you'll still need a couple of powerheads for flow, in the tank.
Gate valves are more accurately adjusted.
You really don't need pinpoint accuracy so a ball valve is fine in this application. Neither one is really designed for throttling but the ball is probably better long term as the gat valve can start to chatter and eventually leak up through the stem with time, they are designed to be fully open or fully closed in normal use but as Reefing Madness pointed out, with the fine threaded shaft you can get some pretty fine adjustments out of it. We used hundreds of them in heavy duty Sch 80 PVC and CPVC in our wells and treatment plants but they eventually fail if they are throttling. The ball will last longer but one drawback is they get hard to tuen if you don't exercise them once in awhile. I guess both have drawbacks but the ball is cheaper and easier to find.
