Reef Discussion

[bryce214]

Hi
I am going to put a wier in my 2ft tank, how many centimetres do i need the wier to be short of the top of the tank, the tank is 36cm high.
Thanks

 

[MagicJ]

Hi bryce214 :welcome

Do you have any bracing around the top of the tank - if so how far from the top edge of the tank to the bottom of the bracing?
What sort of in-tank circulation do you have?

 

[bryce214]

No i don't have any bracing, i have got 2 tunze pumps 6015 and 6025 not sure whether i am going to use both yet. It's a 2ft tank approx 60 litres.

 

[MagicJ]

Sorry, one two three more questions - what sort of return pump will you be using? Capacity l/h? And what height will it be pumping too?

 

[bryce214]

i was thinking of maybe just using an aqua one pump at maybe 2000lph it will be pumping to approx 1.1m high

 

[MagicJ]

Goes away to do some calculations - back soon................

 

[Josh M]

holy snappin duckshit !:eek 25X turnover thru your sump ?!?!? for a nano like that you could jump down to a 1000LPH even with head loss to 600LPH youd still be running 10X turnover where most people aim for 3-4X thru their sump

just my 2c ;)

 

[Josh M]

sorry dont mean to sound rude but yeah you really dont need that big of a return pump so save yourself some cash buddy oh and:welcome

 

[bryce214]

Yeah well i have got an 1000lph pump but i thought it might loose alot of flow (1000lph does sound a bit more sensible)

 

[Josh M]

I have a 3200lph eheim running my 2ft cube and that's dropped down to about 2500lph with about 1.5m of head so I'd give the 1000 a go but it may still be too much depending on what you want to run in your sump..... Macro algae needs slower flow so it has a chance to suck up the nutrients but a dsb needs higher flow so that crud doesn't settle on the sand and suffocate it

Questions:
How big is your sump so we can work out your total volume ?
What do you plan on running in your sump ?

From these two answers we can decipher the layout your sump needs to be and what sort of turnover you will want going through it :)

 

[bryce214]

My sump is 2ft with three sections one for a protein skimmer the next i was thinking maybe coral rubble and maybe some macro. I thought i better tell youIt's going to be a frag tank.

 

[MagicJ]

Just be careful with the pump - from what I can see the eheim has a maximum head of 3m whereas the aqua one only has a maximum head of 2m - I am yet to find a graph for the flow rates for the aqua one but I will keep looking.

I agree with Josh M - you will want around 240-300 l/h through your sump.

I also can't find my weir calculator :mad: but at the required flow the water will rise around 10mm above the weir (how wide is the weir going to be?) - I would give yourself another 20mm safety margin, and to allow for some wave action in the tank i.e. have the top of the weir 30mm from the top of the tank.

 

[bryce214]

I was thinking somthing like 10cm x10cm to 15cm x 15cm wide

 

[MagicJ]

That should be fine for the planned flow rates.

 

[Sarg]

:welcome

3 new faces in as many days and all from VIC :)