Flow Question
 

I have a 70g tank with an overflow rated for 600gph. Can the return pump rate exceed the intake into the sump? I'm looking to push 1800gph out through the return.

I pretty sure you your pump cannot intake into sump. To be safe, it should be less than sump intake rate.

That overflow will not keep up with that size pump you will have a very wet floor.

Nor would i want that much flow going through my sump.

Wouldn't you have a very empty sump? I guess if he had ATO using sump water level, things would get very wet very fast.

that's kind what i was thinking...the math just didn't add up :)

just wanted to kick the thought around as i tend to see many folks pushing more than they are recieving. so the question is; how to hook up a wavy sea and oceans motion? hmmm....

What kind of overflows do you have? 1 1/2" Megaflows should handle 6-700gph. If you have a return pump with a higher flow rate than your overflows will handle just put a ball valve on the output side and slow it down. This will also reduce your watt draw from the pump. This way you can acheive the max flow possible from your return pump.
Most people with high flow rates achieve it through the use of powerheads (tunze, vortech, modded maxi-jets) not through a super strong return pump. You don't want to reduce your dwell time in your sump too much.

30gpm in a 70g tank?

It might be useful to consider the meters per second flow rate of water that the corals actually prefer, not what the hobbyist prefers. 1m/s should be plenty over most corals. Half that (or less) is what I often see in the ocean. More info is online.

Jetdrvr, the overflow is 600gph.

WarrenG, not a flow junky. Just wanted to push adequate flow to these two "wave" apparatus' I've acquired. Was planning on pushing 900gph to wavysea (calculated it out to 715gph w/head loss) and 900gph to the OceansMotion Squirt (didnt' calculate yet, but should be about 715gph w/head loss). Trying to figure this out before I replumb 3 times. At this point looks as though I need to reconsider. Can you tell me a bit more about the meters per second flow? Never heard that before. All I ever hear is folks talking about having lots of flow for SPS.

I do have some Tunze 6025's, but was hoping to get rid of powerheads in the tank.

well, i posted wondering how i could make the wavysea and oceans motion work on this tank. thanks to all that responded that made me realize that to many pumps in the sump was just not going to work.

so i opted to put the oceans motion on the return with an OR3500 (900gph) pump. after head loss it will be 587gph. had this combo but with a SCWD during the "garage" mock up and it was nicely balanced (flow in/flow out of the sump).

i was also searching the site and found out i could mount a maxijet to the wavysea. but didn't like the look. after reading more, i saw where a guy said he had mounted a tunze nanostream on the wavysea. how he did it i'll never know; but, that got the wheels turning. took the maxijet adapter, set it on top of a tunze nanostream 6025 and glued it on. now i have a wavysea with a tunze nanostream mounted in the front corner of the tank. man is it sexy, just a little ball suspended in the front corner of the tank turning 90 degrees (well once i get water in it :) )

[IMG]http://www.truckblog.com/gallery/kenny/32276.JPG[/IMG]

kmp, thx for the pic and idea im gonna barrow it... :) i got a wavy sea and put it on my return and it cut my flow down, so with this idea i can restore my return the way it was, and now add more flow with another tunze

glad it helped. post some pics when you get it set up.