New Aquarium water movement calculus

[JMorris271]

I have been lurking here for a while and have seen some different ways to solve the amount of flow through the system. Please help me got this straight or is there no real answer?
My pump a Sicce 3.0 moves 450 gals or so at 5 ft. of TH.
I have 2 Hydor power heads rated at 1150 gph.each
Total DT movement..2,750 gph
Tank size is 120 gals with a 40 sump and refugium
I am using a Bean over flow system.
I want to do a mixed tank.

Is my pump or the power heads too much for this than?
Thanks in advance .

[coralsnaked]

for SPS you want ~ 30X DT or 3600
LPS ~20 X or 2400
So you are right in the middle! Sounds about right

But Skimmer? RO 150 in a 120G w/ SPS will be a little light if you have a decent bio-load. I'd use that in a 75G. 150 gal is the max rating and normally reserved for FO. You will want to go 1.5 - 2 X the gallon rating for SPS growth. IMHO

[A sea K]

I agree the flow sounds about right but I wouldnt worry about the skimmer just yet. If it's the classic 150 they are pretty good skimmers and until your system tells you otherwise I think it will be fine.

[thegrun]

Your tank if anything is low on water movement, certainly not too much. It might support some soft corals, but to keep sps coral you would want to double the GPM. 20x fish only, 30x soft corals, 40x+ sps coral. Your return pump is okay, somewhat low but passable, but you need more in-tank water movement.

[whosurcaddie]

To give you an example of proper flow in a 120 gallon I have 2 jebao wp-25's running full blast and one jebao rw-15 at just above half power. Once my tank grows in the rw-15 will have to be cranked up.

[JMorris271]

If I would have a refugium, which I have planned for, all of the additional flow would need to be on top of the sump in the power heads?

[whosurcaddie]

I thought you were asking if your pumps were too much flow. Which is why I showed you my setup with the same size tank. I'm getting roughly 7000 gph just from powerheads that's about 58x turnover. Do you have to have that much flow? Not if you don't want SPS but I'm the type of person that would rather have more than I need than not enough. If I wanted I could output another 1000gph. But I don't need it right now. I would shoot for 40x turnover. That will be good for everything.

[JMorris271]

I thought you were asking if your pumps were too much flow. Which is why I showed you my setup with the same size tank. I'm getting roughly 7000 gph just from powerheads that's about 58x turnover. Do you have to have that much flow? Not if you don't want SPS but I'm the type of person that would rather have more than I need than not enough. If I wanted I could output another 1000gph. But I don't need it right now. I would shoot for 40x turnover. That will be good for everything.

WP 25's?

[whosurcaddie]

Jebao 2 WP 25's 1 rw 15 i would actually go with 2 rw 8's and 1 rw 15. The RW'S have much better build quality.

[tmz]

No right answer depending on the corals you keep in large part.,aquascaping and positioning corals matters too.

Two types of flow:

exchange, ie flow to and from the sump and tank is usually good in the 4x water volume to 10x water volume range.

total flow ;exchange plus movement in the aquarium ranges from around 20x for lps to as much as 90x in my sps dominant tanks. Fleshy lps can be positioned to avoid excessive flow in high flow sps dominant tanks.

much of the intake flow should be staggered and turbulent.IME.

[JMorris271]

I want a mix if of LPS & SPS with nothing dominant if possible.
So many of the corals I have seen call for moderate flow but don't indicate what that GPH is. I sure would like the stony option as well down the road a bit.
so i'm now looking at 2 RW 15's.
Any thoughts on these for a 120 tank?
I just can't spring for the High Ends nowI would have to cook my own meals forever

[tmz]

I'm not familiar with the RW15's. I use a lot of powerheads with the seven tanks ; maxijets, korilia, aqauaclear and WP 25s and 40s. they all work fine . I also use a variety of controllers, sieo,coeralvue strip types and the WP. The high end price points are past where I'm willing to go.

[whosurcaddie]

I want a mix if of LPS & SPS with nothing dominant if possible.
So many of the corals I have seen call for moderate flow but don't indicate what that GPH is. I sure would like the stony option as well down the road a bit.
so i'm now looking at 2 RW 15's.
Any thoughts on these for a 120 tank?
I just can't spring for the High Ends nowI would have to cook my own meals forever

If you get two rw 15's you leave yourself a lot of wiggle room. And like I said in an earlier post they have much better build quality than the wp's.

I will most likely in the future be replacing my wp 25's with one rw 15. plus the added benefit of synced controllers.

[whosurcaddie]

double