overflow question

[Canuckgod420]

Originally Posted by sphelps

Easy buddy we're all friends here, but if you want to be a jerk you don't know how to calculate head pressure.

you've got 6 feet of vertical height and I'll assume 1 foot of horizontal. On top of that you've got 4 90s and again I'll also assume a ball valve. Easiest way to calculate head pressure is to use a calculator like the one on RC. Head pressure is also directly related to flow rate so for an example if you run a sequence 2400 (similar to snapper) in your situation (with 1.5" piping) as described you get 6.81 feet of head pressure and 1231gph but if you run a larger pump in the same situation you'll get upwards of 9.8 feet of head pressure. 1 foot per 90 is not accurate.

Unfortunately such an elementary calculator doesn't properly allow for multiple branch calculations however consider this: Yes if you branch the flow to two equal lines you split the flow but your head pressure will decrease. In fact it will decrease for two reasons, lower flow and double the cross sectional area of the pipe. Therefore you can trick such a calculator to give a good estimate. For example, let's assume two pipes from a 2500gph pump, each 1.5" and both have vertical distance of 6 feet and 1 foot horizontal with 4 90s a piece. We can trick the calculator to give us an estimate, remember this is an estimate, you don't want me to do the real thing, trust me . So use the same pump but we'll assume two 1.5" pipes are pretty close to one 2" pipe (which they are, considering the extra pipe friction from the two 1.5" pipes). We still only have 6 feet of actual head but we'll add the extra 6 feet into the horizontal distance to account for friction loss.
So this is what we got:
Pipe size: 2" (actually two 1.5" lines)
Vertical: 6 feet
Horizontal: 8 feet
90s: 8
Ball valves: 2

Total head pressure: 6.53 feet of head and 1305 gph.

Wow you gained flow, that snapper is looking pretty good, but keep in mind a super rough estimate here, but in such a circumstance you could actually gain "total" flow and reduce head pressure by branching a line to another tank.

Also I thought I'd point out another problem, you seemed to have bought a pump you know nothing about except that it came off a jacuzzi and uses too much power. What about flow rate? Doesn't sound like research to me.

I once met a guy who has kept saltwater tanks for 20+ years but could still not figure out how to keep any corals alive other than mushrooms. Also as an engineer I have to deal with many clients who have issues using some of our products, whenever there's a problem on the clients side the first thing they say is "I've been doing this for so many years, I can't be wrong" but they always are

you wanna talk about being a jerk... I'm not trying to push my opinion down anyones throat.
I've done more research than you need to know....not a pump thread, this was about a herbie.

I simply responded to myka in the same tone I got from her post about head pressure.

Are you to tell me now that I dont know how to keep a reef tank? I happen to have a beautiful reef in my home that many of these other canreefers have seen. Were talking about a pump here. And whos to say that maybe your not the one wrong here?

I never asked for your(or anyones) opinion about the pump I have in mind for the job....this was a herbie question thread.