benefits to a bigger return pump

If it aint broke, dont fix it. if you are in the suggested range of turnover and water movement then your doin good.

 

Is your skimmer in the sump? Some people try (not all) and match the flow from the tank to match what your skimmer can process. Your Maxi-jet 1200 is rated at 295gph at 0 head pressure. Every inch you pump up drops that rate. I would say at 4' your pumping 1/2 that. But hey, you say it working for you, so keep it. I also like the return to add some more flow to my display so I don't have to have 5 powerheads in my tank. Just MO.

 

i plumbed in a large pump, but i am not too happy with my oceanmotions 4way. I have preasure issues in the oceanmotions; if the water preasure is too high it makes a thumping sound ( i think it is the magnet/drum is skipping rotation because of the water preasure holding it in a place of least resistance.) I am leaning toward a smaller pump and powerhead pumps in the display tank.

 

Having a slower return has many more advantages over a faster one.  It allows for more effecient skimming, GAC and GFO absorption.  If it is working for your tankmates, I wouldn't change a thing.  However, experimenting doesn't hurt!

 

in an ideal system all of the water that leaves the tank will go through the skimmer and then back into the tank. the higher the flow through the sump the less likely the water will be skimmed to remove DOC's. Opposite with lower flow through the sump, your skimmer is not working as it could. GAC and GFO will better serve its purpose in a reactor.

 

Over-sizing your return pump allows you to run a manifold on your return which can run other reactors and things. I do this and recommend others to as well. Using just one pump is great so that you only have to have one backup pump on hand in case a pump breaks. Also, go external when you can. They are usually more cost effective to run and don't add as much heat to the water. Obviously, make sure and put ball valves in place to control the flow as needed.

If you don't have a backup return pump (especially if you're using it for more than just a return), you should. The pet store won't always be open and if you have a return pump go out at a bad time, you may be forced to temporarily reconfigure things to keep your display heated and run without a skimmer until you get the replacement pump. Plus, if you're forced to buy retail, you're going to pay a heck of a lot more than buying online new or finding a deal on a used pump. I'm reconfiguring my system and part of that is to change my return pump to a Reeflo Hammerhead. I was able to buy two of them (one online and one from a club member) for almost $100 less than what just one of them would have cost new..and that's online, not retail. If I had that pump go out, it's not available around here so I would be forced to reconfigure things for heat, buy a new one online and pay for expedited shipping. Save yourself the bucks and anticipate failure on your important devices.

Another thing to consider, not having enough turnover between your tank and your sump will allow for temp discrepancies. For example, your display could vary from your sump by a half degree or more depending on lights, etc. I found this to be especially true with my frag tank...so much so that I put in a separate temp probe and heater directly in the frag tank.

I hope this has given you a few things to think about.

And about running the dual BRS reactor for carbon/gfo/biopellets, you can probably get rid of your GFO and make sure that your biopellets are last in the sequence so you don't get all that bacteria laden water going through your carbon.

--AJ

 

AJ's comments were all great, but if the pump fails and your out of town for the weekend, you may end up with some dead corals. If you used 2 smaller pumps if one fails your still going to come home to a healthy tank. If you did see Sanjay at reef fest you should watch his presentation, he went over system design which was very informative.

 

If you run a pump get a Marineland Utility pump. They are some of the nicest pump plus they are way underrated. That is all i run in my biocube and they are so quiet, and very efficiant, plus the warranty is awesome on them.

 

Good point.  So to clarify, you're saying to use two pumps to drive the water back to your display?  That would certainly build in a form of redundancy, but may be difficult for those people with a single return line.  Considering the possibility of equipment failure while you're gone is a good reason for making sure that you have someone come over and check on your tank when you're out of town; but like many, if I'm out of town for a short time like a weekend, I don't do this.  This is an excellent argument for having a controller on your tank.  With a controller, there are a couple of things that you can do to determine if your pump is running...
1) Put a float valve in your overflow (with a snail guard of course).  If the water level gets too low for a sustained period of time, then your return pump is not working.  Your controller can notify you of this condition and you can have someone swing by your house and swap the replacement pump in. 
2) Monitor the temp in your display tank and compare the value to your sump.  I'm not sure if you can create an alert condition by comparing the difference between two probe values, but at least you would be able to check your controller and see what the temps were.
Along the same line as item 1, you can put a second float valve in your overflow to alert you on a
water too high condition (and have it turn off your return pump) in
case your return line gets plugged.  This would prevent your display
tank from overflowing, causing a huge mess and emptying out your sump, ruining your pumps, heaters, etc.  Conversely, you could also put a water level switch in your sump to detect a low water condition, program it to alert you and shut down the gear that would break if water was not present.  This would also prevent your ATO from diluting the water and causing a low salinity issue.
Also, if you expect someone else to be able to
swap out a pump for you while you're gone, make it easy for them.  Use
full union ball valves on your external pumps or a union on your in-sump
return pump.  Then it's as easy as turning a few ball valves,
unscrewing the unions, and screwing the new pump in place - attaching
them to the same ball valves.  It also makes it easy for you when you do your pump maintenance (i.e. cleaning the impeller & shafts, checking seals, etc.).  Also, label things (Calfo made this a big point in one of his presentations...I think it was Fall Fest 2009). 
I've not seen Sanjay's presentation, but I'm looking forward to watching it.
--AJ

 

You could always use two pumps and join them into a single manifold?

 

So what happens when you get one pump that goes bad?  The good pump pushes the water thru the bad pump (the path of least resistance - lower head pressure) and you go from two working pumps, to one working pump that's effectively doing nothing.
You could use check valves, but those aren't good either.  No a good approach IMO.
--AJ