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#1
06-22-2009, 10:50 PM
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Ahhhh I see. Pretty cool set up.
I talked to the guy and this is a wholesale shop that basically supplies all the aquarium stores in the city with their tanks and we had a 20 minute conversation about what I wanted to do and we ended up settling on an 18" overflow box centered on the back with two seperate 2" drains. I'll likely only be using one with my current setup but he said he'd drill the other for free and that the tank could essentially be setup and plumbed to turn over the tank 30x an hour through this drain and the return holes which will be 1/2" holes cut evenly along the back as high as he can drill them and evenly spaced. It'd be cool to get a pump that did 30x165=4950gph and have absolutely zero hardware in the tank. It'd all be in the sump, I wouldnt even need powerheads in the tank. I could just get those bendable spray arms for the returns and direct them wherever Id like. 
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#2
06-22-2009, 11:05 PM
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I don't think you'd want 30x through your sump. The water would be going to fast for the skimmer to do a proper job, and you might end up with a micro bubble problem. You should be aiming for maybe 5-8x through the sump. Thats why you see people investing so much money in the powerheads(tunze's and vortech's) as well as closed loops is because the flow you want, which could be upwards of 80x's per hour needs to be within the display and not from your return pump. HTH
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#4
06-22-2009, 11:43 PM
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To high sump flow will lead to microbubbles. But won't affect the skimmer. Not all the sump flow flows through the skimmer.
besides, 1200GPH is about tops for 18" of overflow
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Dan Pesonen Umm, a tank or 5 Last edited by banditpowdercoat; 06-22-2009 at 11:45 PM.
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#5
06-23-2009, 12:03 AM
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Quote:
Right now Im planning on running my sump at about 1200-1400 GPH (depending on how much head loss I get from my 1600 GPH pump) through the sump and then likely buy koralias for the rest of my flow needs. (the tank is 165G as a reminder) If, down the road, I do want to get rid of the koralias I could run a closed loop off of an exterior pump and use the return holes for my flow and have no hardware in the tank. That could be pretty cool.
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#6
06-23-2009, 12:15 AM
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Dan Pesonen Umm, a tank or 5
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#7
06-23-2009, 05:44 AM
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Quote:
Lets do some math. A 2" drain has a 2500 GPH flow rate according to this site: http://www.diamondbitsusa.com/index....d=48&Itemid=60 Now, this has a linear surface area of 3.14" (1 squared x pi) My overflow has a linear surface area of 45" (18"x2.5")... So I have two 2" drains, so 5000 GPH. Now assuming the drainage through the overflow is the same as through the drain (gravity might help) my overflow technically could handle 35,828 GPH before itd start to overflow the edges of my tank... This dude has been building tanks for 30 years. He quoted what 1/2" bulkheads and 2" bulkheads are rated at for maximum flow off the top of his head. He had a tank with a 3 foot grand cayman alligator in it in the lobby of his shop.... I'm sure he knows what he's doing. Lets just say the limiting factor on my drainage is my bulkheads, not my overflow cut out.
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#8
06-23-2009, 06:17 AM
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Your weir height will be 2.5" below the water height? You only want 1/4" or so of Skimming, the top surface of the water. Thats the whole reason for a overflow. the thinner the "skim" you can take off the top, the better. thats why I went with a Coast to Coast. Using All avail distance for skimming
And you can not take Linear surface and use it like Pipe area. Doesnt work that way.
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Dan Pesonen Umm, a tank or 5 Last edited by banditpowdercoat; 06-23-2009 at 06:20 AM.
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