help me choose a pump rating

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G

gman

Candiru
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Dec 28, 2005
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I am in the process of building my 90 gal and I am going to be using a homeade wet dry. I need to figure out what the pump needs to be rated at in gph. I want the tank to cycle 7-10 times an hour, and it is going to need to be able to pump the water 3'-3.5' out of the sump.

How many gph should the pump be rated at?
 
If you go for 7-10 times an hour and adjust the rated output by the head height, this varies by type of pump, you then further adjust it by filter resistance. A ball park figure for a pump in that range you will lose 1/4 of your max flow at around 5'. so even allowing for a head of 3 1/2' and moderate resistance a 1200 gph would be plenty to deliver around 900 gph.
 
Not Rio. I've heard lots of bad things about them. You don't want to be cheap on your tank's water pump.

Pick a GPH you want for the system,
figure out the feet of head you'll have in the your system (this includes feet of piping, height diff, how many joints, how many 45deg and 90deg turns, etc,
pick a reliable manufacture such as Mag Drive,
find a page on the web that has a chart that lists the GPH at the head you'll have,
pick the model that'll be a little bit more then you need, you can always use a ball valve to restrict the output.

The Marine Depot Mag Drive page.
 
qumqats said:
Not Rio. I've heard lots of bad things about them. You don't want to be cheap on your tank's water pump.

Pick a GPH you want for the system,
figure out the feet of head you'll have in the your system (this includes feet of piping, height diff, how many joints, how many 45deg and 90deg turns, etc,
pick a reliable manufacture such as Mag Drive,
find a page on the web that has a chart that lists the GPH at the head you'll have,
pick the model that'll be a little bit more then you need, you can always use a ball valve to restrict the output.

The Marine Depot Mag Drive page.
Click to expand...

actually i find the rio pumps very reliable

the only downside to them that they loose alot of head pressure at certain lengths

i had one that was as old as me and it performed very well, it only burned out because i forgot to top off the sump :(
 
Good brand pump, well made. According to their chart you will end up with about 800 gph.
 
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