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Good morning Anthony, I was hoping to get some advice from you this morning  . I have read through a lot of closed loop threads and have come up with this idea. Here's a little sketch I drew up. I really like the action of the sea swirls, you think this plan will be sufficient for my tank, mostly SPS and LPS, 180 AGA? So my questions are...what pump would be strong enough to push this kind of flow? 3200 GPH through quite a few 90 degree elbows. I will be drilling 2 holes in the tank for the pump intake. How big should they be? Ideally, how far down in the tank also? I'll have more Q's, but I'll wait until you look at the plan first, thanks Anthony! Patrick
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| I am not Anthony but may I recommend some starting points... Go over to www.reefcentral.com and use the headloss calculator on the homepage. You will have to make some approximations considering your split of intakes & discharges and use of t's & seaswirls. If you follow my pipe size recomendations, use 2" pipe for the flow losses and it will get you close enough for pump sizing. The flow itself is questionable, using twin mega-flows, I assume your return is ~1000gph. A total flow of 4200gph is about a 23, which is soso for SPS, but maybe ok for mixed. Anthony can clarify this better. The nozzle output of 800gph each is good, power heads are typcially 200 and stream style units are 1000gph. If you up the flow, I would recommend more outputs since the seaswirls dont come bigger than 1" (that I am aware of), maybe a mix of static discharges and seaswirls...I have seen this and it works fine IMO. My pipe size recommendations may seem a little big, but they are based on professional practice of 3-4 feet per second velocity, this velocity balances minimizing headlosses maximizing economy (bulk & cost). Others may recommend smaller diameter pipe and that is fine too, you will just have to go with the next larger pump or settle for decreased flow, but neither is wrong. For the intakes: intake (2) pipes (1600gph each), I recommend 1.5" pipe; for the combined flow (3200gph) pipe, I recommend 2.5" pipe. If the pump is close by and the run of combined flow is short, then I would probably just use 2" throughout the intake side as you want to minimize the intake headlosses to decrease pump wear. For the discharges: combined flow on pump discharge, I recommend 2.5" pipe as above, you could get away with 2" here as well, but if the pump is 'off site', use 2.5". On the manifold itself, I would use 1.5". I would not use the 1.5" coming off the pump though, I recomend sticking with the 2" or 2.5". For the discharges themselves, if I remember correctly the seaswirls are 1" pipe. If you add any static discharges to the mix, make these 1" as well, otherwise the water will 'short circuit' the seaswirls. Also, if you choose to go with smaller pipe, for the manifold to work properly, the dishcarge pipes need to be atleast 1 pipe size smaller than the manifold pipe itself, otherwise the pressure wont equalize as much as it can and more flow will come out of the first branches and less out of the later. Chris
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My one suggestion would be to relocate the two Sea-Swirls that are in the middle section. I would place them in the center but opposite one another, one on the back and one on the front.
Steven Pro, yeah that is my real name.
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| Thanks guys. I should say I welcome all opionions not just Anthony, sorry bout that I'm printing this out and I'm still a couple of weeks away from building this. I'll be asking more questions thats for sure!! Patrick
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| OK new idea. I can get at least 1400 GPH out of my sump returns on the back wall, probably more. I have modified the megaflows a bit, seems to work a lot better. What if I put all 4 sea swirls (800 GPH each) on the front panel of the tank, evenly spaced? Eliminating the large oval shape of the closed loop will be much easier for me, with the way my lighting hood raises up and down on a pulley system. Just run 1 PVC line from the CL pump up and across the front of the tank, with ball valves on each line leading to the to each Sea swirl outlet to help control GPH through each. For the back wall, I have a Red Sea wave maker with 4 MJ 1200's, I am going to place those below the rock work, strategically, to eliminate dead spots. Well, what do you guys think? Patrick
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| wow, sounds busy. My biggest concern is aethetics of having the Seaswirls on the front, they are pretty bulky. I like a clean look myself. My original plan was to use 2 tunze streams as per Anthony's recomendation and then supplement with Maxi-jets on a Natural Wave Maker. Anthony is generally against wave makers but I figured since it was supplemental to the Tunze, it was not wasted potential. If you like the maxi-jet/wavemaker combo, can I recommend the Maxi-jet M900's they are only 230gph as opposed to 290gph but are a 1/2 to a 1/3 the wattage. Since they will not be your primary ciruclation, the drop in flow wont be a big loss. I have recently changed my mind and have decided to do a wavebox, most likely Tunze over Wave2k. I am not expecting any dead spots. I will still have the Tunze streams. Chris
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FWIW... while I agree that Seaswirls are fine devices, I'm just not sold on their "value" or need among other choices for prviding optimal water flow in reef aquaria. My vote indeed is to nix them here as an unecessary expense/impediment.
.Anthony Calfo
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| Well as for the sea swirls, I really don't buy anything "new" so at about 70 each I don't think they are too expensive Don't you see them as a better alternative than just PVC outlets? My tank is built in the wall, so the SS won't be visable from the front. I really don't want to put tunze's and a big box in my display...no offense to those that do at all, it's just not contradictory to the look I am going for. Now the new Icecap pump, well that I would do, but not at 385 $ or whatever the MSRP is supposed to be! PK
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If you really want to spend the money, buy one of the devices sold by Oceans Motions. I'd buy a squirt or super squirt with the money and put it on that 1200 GPH of pump flow. Out of the squirt comes 4 pipes. Put those equally spaced along the back somewhere. The squirt will alternate the flow between these outputs, always doing 2 outputs at a time.
As for your closed loop, for the rate you are talking about, I'd recommend a Sequence Reeflo Dart hooked up to a Closed Loop Manifold. DO SEE that article by Anthony for more information.
Paul Thompson
South Ascot, Berkshire, England
Board - West London Reef Club
Webmaster - Central Oklahoma Marine Aquarium Society
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