Syncra 5.0 pump too powerful?

Jkellar · Mar 15, 2022

Hi all, working through setting up my reefer 350. Finally have sand, water, rock, and salt in it. When I turned on the return pump though it is so powerful even on the lowest setting that I think the current is hitting the glass, going down and making a bare spot on the bottom front. I have 70lbs of sand in and it was a couple inches thick to start.

I bought the syncra 5.0 so that I could have it turned down and still meet the 790gph that is recommended for the tank. Turned to the minimum it is supposed to be 713gph. With this logic I thought I would be able to run it two clicks from the bottom. Was hoping this would prolong the life and reduce the chance of failure.

Am I missing something here? I also feel like the outlet head needs to be replaced on this tank also, if I could point it towards a front corner that might be a lot better?

blaxsun · Mar 15, 2022

I would probably run something like the Sicce SDC 6 instead. It will consume a lot less power and you can adjust the speed over WiFi with the app. It will pay for itself in a year with the power savings.

Take the Red Sea recommendations with a grain of salt: 790 Gph is way too much flow for a Reefer 350. On my Red Sea 750XXL I run a single Sicce SDC 9 @45% and my flow is somewhere between 650-750 Gph.

workhz · Mar 15, 2022

Maybe their recommended pump rating is just that, for the pump and not what comes out of the return. With 4-5’ of height there would be a 30-40% loss.

Jkellar · Mar 15, 2022

workhz said:
Maybe their recommended pump rating is just that, for the pump and not what comes out of the return. With 4-5’ of height there would be a 30-40% loss.

Sorry I am kind of new to this, not sure I am following. I followed the pump recomendation do you think this is just to much as @blaxsun said. The problem is I already bought it and put it in the tank before figuring this out.

Billldg · Mar 15, 2022

You can always add a hand valve between the pump and return plumping to reduce the flow even further. I had a Sicce 5.0 on my 120 gal tank, so they can move a good bit of water.

workhz · Mar 15, 2022

Jkellar said:
Sorry I am kind of new to this, not sure I am following. I followed the pump recomendation do you think this is just to much as @blaxsun said. The problem is I already bought it and put it in the tank before figuring this out.

blaxsun is probably correct in terms of a dc controllable pump but I would figure out what turnover you actually want and look at the output/height graphs. Yours might work fine. 1300g at 60% is about 800g/h. If you reduce power of the pump down to 713g then you're at 427g/hr which gets you to about 6x turnover which I think is acceptable. I do 3-4x but some people do 10x.

Jkellar · Mar 15, 2022

Well it seems that this was a dumb mistake on my part. I thought it was the return pump. However it was my wave pumps blasting into each other and creating a down current. I thought I was turning them down but when using the Apex “on” just means 100%. Now that I have set them to auto things have calmed down.
Thank you for all the replies. At least now it doesn’t seem I wasted money on a pump that won’t work.