AlexKilpatrick Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 In order to minimize noise, I am looking at scaling back my sump pump output pretty dramatically. I am guessing (hard to tell), I might take a couple of hours to turn over all the water in the tank. I have two vortech MP40s for water movement inside the tank, so I think I am ok there. From what I have heard, this might actually increase skimmer performance because it has more time to work on a particular "chunk" of water. Are there any gotchas I might need to know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarathustra2 Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 You really want to shoot for about 4x flow through your sump. You won't have enough water going through your sump to have optimal filtration. If you want less noise you might want to look into how your return pipe and sump return are set up. First, is the noise coming from your overflow or from where it exits into your sump? If its from your overflow you can look into a Durso pipe or similar configuration. If its in your return then you can have the pipe go under your water level a bit in the return. Drill a couple of air holes right above water level to avoid a siphon. My 90G has 1200GPH return and is pretty quiet after adding the durso and reconfiguring my sump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddybluewater Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 I don't believe that you can increase skimmer performance by having less water flow to it. Your skimmer is going to operate at the gph of the pump running it. I try to have a total flow of 30-40x my tank volume and bout 6-7x through the skimmer compartment 3-4x in the fuge. I think the slower flow inth fuge is good but not in the skimmer. The more flow just keeps the waste suspended in the water column and off the rocks and sand bed. If it is suspended in the water it will eventually run through the skimmer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Daniel Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 How much were you planning to scale back the flow? I have about 400gph (roughly 4-5x) through my sump with good results. I have a tee on my return line which redirects at least half of the water from my return pump back into the first chamber of my sump. I would recommend this strategy for lowering the flow rate of your return versus throttling back your pump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexKilpatrick Posted October 19, 2009 Author Share Posted October 19, 2009 From my rough measurement is is about 2X. From what I have read, there is no point in having a flow that is greater than your skimmer. I don't have any easy way to measure my skimmer output, but from what I can feel on the output line, it is a lot less than that the current flow rate of my return pump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddybluewater Posted October 20, 2009 Share Posted October 20, 2009 What is your return pump? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarathustra2 Posted October 21, 2009 Share Posted October 21, 2009 You want to put your water through your mechanical and chemical filtration at about 4x tank volume. Your skimmer is limited to the pump you are putting it through. Refugiums you want to have a reletively low flow rate just because you don't want to blow away all the nice little critters before they have had a chance to life cycle. Less a tank volume and more of a checking out the flow rate and keeping it in LPS territory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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