What's your GPH water turn over rate on your tanks?

[95Harley]

Does anyone think of this on FW tanks?
I am in the middle of building a Wet/Dry filter for my 180g FW tank to replace my two XP3's.

Interesting to me is on Saltwater tanks gph turn rate is VERY important and with reef's it's like the golden rule. But you never hear about it on Freshwater tanks.

Just curious what everyone uses....or do you even know.

240g Salt is using an external pump rated at 3600gph so it's turning 15 times per hr.

75g Salt is running an external pump at 1090gph so it's a 14 times turn per hr.

180g FW is running just the two XP3's rated at 350gph so = 700gph. So only 3.5 turns per hour. SHAME ON ME!! No wonder I have algae.

Wonder if this has any impact on our water conditions, etc?

Getting ready to replace them with a Mag 12 or 18 at 1200-1800gph to get turn rate of my water up to 6-10 turns per hr.

 

[flamenco-t]

I like to keep my turnover through the sump somewhat low to medium, it gives enough time for the bio bacteria in my wet dry to take its time to do their job. I have a 240 and I am doing about 800 gph through the sump and my drip plate is 35" x 12" and the water drips evenly accross the plate without any going over the drip plate and run down.

I am using 3 powerhead in the tank to bring the turnover rate up to my liking and it gives different option for flows for each fish in the tank..

stan

 

[Dr Joe]

1) Does anyone think of this on FW tanks?
I am in the middle of building a Wet/Dry filter for my 180g FW tank to replace my two XP3's.

Interesting to me is on Saltwater tanks gph turn rate is VERY important and with reef's it's like the golden rule. But you never hear about it on Freshwater tanks.

2) Just curious what everyone uses....or do you even know.

3) 240g Salt is using an external pump rated at 3600gph so it's turning 15 times per hr.

75g Salt is running an external pump at 1090gph so it's a 14 times turn per hr.

4) 180g FW is running just the two XP3's rated at 350gph so = 700gph. So only 3.5 turns per hour. SHAME ON ME!! No wonder I have algae.

5) Wonder if this has any impact on our water conditions, etc?

6) Getting ready to replace them with a Mag 12 or 18 at 1200-1800gph to get turn rate of my water up to 6-10 turns per hr.

1) If it wasn't for your post count I'd think you were a here. There is much talk about turnover rate on here, look in the filtration section mostly.

2) A TRUE MFK'er always knows his turnover rates, mine are all over the board from near zero to over 20x.

3) Are these S/W reefs?

4) Turnover rates are not the cause ofalgae. Algae are following the nutrients. Balance the tank (bio-load) and filtration.

5) Do you think it could? You are a . Your just messing with us now. Balancing the filter to the bio-load is everything.

6) Why? With what filtration system.

Dr Joe

.

 

[Dr Joe]

I like to keep my turnover through the sump somewhat low to medium, it gives enough time for the bio bacteria in my wet dry to take its time to do their job. I have a 240 and I am doing about 800 gph through the sump and my drip plate is 35" x 12" and the water drips evenly accross the plate without any going over the drip plate and run down.

I am using 3 powerhead in the tank to bring the turnover rate up to my liking and it gives different option for flows for each fish in the tank..

stan

What kind of filters are the powerheads in the tank hooked to? Otherwise that's just circulation not turnover rate.

Dr Joe

.

 

[95Harley]

Ouch, easy killa..just trying to open a discussion and get folks thoughts. I personally have always thought about it for SW but not thought about turnover for FW. I have always just bought a filtration system that was rated at double for what I needed.

The only reason I'm running the XP3's is that I got a smokin deal on ebay for the 180g tank, stand, lights, and filters last year. But now it's finally time to upgrade them.

 

[Dreamsofpeace54]

75: 680 gph (9.06 times an hour)
55: 700 gph (12.72 times an hour)
46: 180 gph (3.91 times an hour)

 

[milkman407]

240 gallon tank, 2 overflows going at 1,400gph each.

so 2,800gph.

each one going into a diffrnt wet/dry filter

the pumps are pushing 575 gph each but pushing up about 3 feet.

so 1,150 gph going into the tank. minus the 3feet so i'd say like 1000gph
so around 4x

thats not included the power heads.

 

[tunerX]

120XH about 1200 GPH into my sump. It also has two AC110s on it.

579 running about 5500GPH into the sump. With another 1200GPH for a bio loop.

95 Reef 800GPH sump with Two AC 70 powerheads set up in a wavemaker setup.

29 gallon AC 110. Thinking about putting my proclear 125 sump and overflow on it. It is used for feeders.

2x 55, 1x 125, 2x 240, 2x 29, 2x 10 all sitting empty.

 

[Danh]

480g is 2x3600gph pumps at 6' of head.. That's 5800-6000gph. That's 12.5. 180g used to have a mag 36, but the a 24, then that broke...

Your XP's, or any manufactured filters are rated by water volume.. So a 180g tank could have 4 betas, or it could have 5 3' long silver arowanas and 2 2' red tail cats. The filtration needs for those tanks would be much different. That's why you can't really go by those ratings. I guess the only real way to make sure your bio filtering enough is testing to make sure you never have any ammonia. Someone can ask if a certain filter/combo/setup would be ok, and others can given an answer based on experience that it may or may not work.

As far as turnover goes, of course, it depends what your turning it over through. If you have overflows going straight in to a sump with no media, then back in to the tank, then you can 25x turnover and it does no good. It's the turnover through the sump combined with the media and the setup that will determine if it's sufficient.

Unless your overflow boxes let the water build up a few feet over the overflow (and really get a lot of pressure), then if you run 800 gph or 2000, then the rate at which the water flows over DRY media won't change much. Epecially when you have a drip plate. It's just gravity without much pressure causing the water to really shoot through scourers or bio balls. I haven't testing this, it just seems pretty obvious to me. Although WAY too much flow over too little dry media could cause it to lose it's dry qualities.

If you've got a small sump with submerged bio media, then yes, more turnover will cause the water to spend less time with the meda in the sump. In this case, I wouldn't opt for a smaller pump, I'd get a bigger sump that could hold more media and water.

 

[saltydog_1]

300 gal tank, 2400 gph after head loss through the sump, and canister filter pushing about 3-400 gph. i think in tank circulation plays a vital role in filtration. without powerheads or spray nozzles on return lines it would be easy to get dead spots in a tank, especially some of the larger ones on here. these dead spots can be a spot for detritus to build up, leading to problems. so keep those tanks flowing inside too.