Did you know that you should NOT vary the intensity of the return pump throughout the day?

[blecki]

I think your poll results will be invalidated because you broke up 'yes' into two options with criteria that may not apply. In my case, I never even thought to vary it. It was common sense that it should be as high as the drain allowed. Which option do I pick?

You should have just done 'yes' and 'no'.

 

[MrGisonni]

Second this!
I was kinda shock and thought it was a marketing gimmicky when I saw the App for Sicce SDC return pump has 5 Modes (basically varies flow patterns like a wave maker).

I have a sicce pump on a 175 that I take care of at my school and it runs that variable surge with very little if any observable change in water levels

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think your poll results will be invalidated because you broke up 'yes' into two options with criteria that may not apply. In my case, I never even thought to vary it. It was common sense that it should be as high as the drain allowed. Which option do I pick?

You should have just done 'yes' and 'no'.

Or, no, I don't agree at all. lol
It's like a push poll in a political campaign.

 

[nickng]

I have a sicce SDC 3.0 with these functions. Frankly I didn't know it wasn't recommended and when I 1st got the pump i did think it was a wonderful feature. All that changed after I setup my tank and adjusted the flow to get the overflow working properly and silent. Then it dawned on me that I can't really vary the intensity or else my overflow will be unstable and noisy.
Felt a little let down after that because I was thinking that maybe I had my tank and overflow or plumbing set-up incorrectly and that was preventing me from using those flow patterns.
Thanks to this thread I now know better, those functions were never meant to be used when the pump is being ultilised as a return pump in a sumped system.
I'm guessing those variable speed and pattern functions are only suitable if the pump was being used as a circulation only pump or for the return pump of canister filter system.

 

[Thales]

According to manufacturers of smart return pumps you should NOT vary the intensity of your pump throughout the day, even if this feature is available. If you do so you will have varying water levels in the overflow box, sump and skimmer, causing all kinds of problems and never being able to keep things stable.

Nah, it depends on your set up and your understanding of your set up and your understanding of what variable flow will do in your set up.
My display return flow changes throughout the day, but my system can handle it.

 

[o2manyfish]

This question/poll is clearly more representative of experience and knowlege or lack there of rather than a statement of 'fact'.

To make such a flat out statement in this hobby is just wrong. In this hobby there is someone who is successful doing it every which way you can imagine, or not even dreamed about.

For almost 20 years I ran my system with a 2 story surge tank that dropped 22g of water into a 400g tank in 9 secs about every 90 seconds. Did it affect, skimmer, overflow, topoff, the spin speed of the earth - No it did not.

Does everyone use an overflow with a gate valve that while great at being silent is only silent when correctly set to a specific flow rate.... No they do not.

I run Abyzz return pumps - not only do I use the variable speed feature, but they also have a pulse/wave mode --- yes you can create a wave in a tank via the return pump.

Does it affect noise - No, Does my skimmer work. Yes. Does my topoff work. Yes.

Is it hard to build a system that is adaptable to more than just one specific flow rate - Absolutely.

My overflows are multipe 2" dursos. They run pretty silent. Silent enough that you can't hear them at night when the LED fans are off. In fact the loudest noise from my tank is the waves hitting the side of the tank from the wave mode from the Abyzz Flow Cannon.

Does my skimmer work consistently - Yes - Because the skimmer is in it's own baffled chamber where the water level is always exactly the same - To Maintain optimum skimmer performance - Regardless of flow rate or top off needed.

If my topoff out of control --- No it's not. My system calms down at dawn (real sunrise) and the hour before the light come on in the afternoon - All the in tank flow pumps shut off and the Abyzz return pumps slow down. Giving the tank a quiet time 2x a day. This is one of the few times when in a home aquarium you will get tangs to school like they would in the wild. But this calm period provides 2 90 minute windows a day when topoff is stable at a lowest set point - and they water levels can be correctly maintained.

Is is common sense that you can't use a variable speed pump in a reef tank.... It's not even close. It's specific to each aquarium setup.


Dave B

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

For almost 20 years I ran my system with a 2 story surge tank that dropped 22g of water into a 400g tank in 9 secs about every 90 seconds.

Cool. I've always thought these a good idea, except for issues like salt creep.

How do you think it worked out?

 

[o2manyfish]

Cool. I've always thought these a good idea, except for issues like salt creep.

How do you think it worked out?

My 400g was an entirey open expanse top - No bracing. When I first started running the surge tank there were issues when the surge started there is a bunch of air coming out of the pipe and then a big belch of air as the water pushed the air out and then bubbles at the end.

I'm sensitive to noise and I couldn't stand the belching sound from the surge starting, so I built a 2" perforated muffler,diffuser on the surge outlet and this broke down the bubbles and made things quiet. Bruce Carlson visited once and said it was one of the best modifications he had seen to the surge system. Even without the noise the air bubbles being pushed out of 16' of 2" pipe produced so many bubbles that the room would get bright from all the light being bounced off the air bubbles.

The creep like this was not too bad. the lights over the top of the tank took the most of it. But with an entirely open top there weren't that many places for the creep to appear.

After 10 years I switched from the Carlson surge to a 2" motorized ball valve for the surge. This was the greatest upgrade I could do. With the ball valve timed correctly you never run the surge tank to the bottom. The pipe always has full water in it. Not a single air bubble would appear ever. This not only got rid of any noises in the house but the siphon break crash outside the house.

As for the effectiveness of the surge tank. When I first setup the tank I intended for one to go on each end of the tank. For a 400g tank I had a big 30g oveflow to accommodate the extra water from the surge while the 2 2" drains take it out of the tank. But I quickly realized that the force with which the water pumped out was so much that it moved all the water in the tank. 8' down the length of the tank, 3' around the end of the tank and another couple of feet in the reverse direction - with enough force to tear lps tentacles. And that was just the main path of the water.

With my new 750g tank I don't have the ability to put the surge tank into play. Instead I have the Panta Rhei ECM63 and (2) Abyzz Flow Canons - The Flow cannons are impressive pieces of equipment. They move a ton of water. But the impact when a flow cannon kicks on is not the same amount of hard push as the surge created. The Flow Cannon easily pushes the water 10' down the front of the tank, 4' around the end and 8'+ down the back side with good flow.

Dave B

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My 400g was an entirey open expanse top - No bracing. When I first started running the surge tank there were issues when the surge started there is a bunch of air coming out of the pipe and then a big belch of air as the water pushed the air out and then bubbles at the end.

I'm sensitive to noise and I couldn't stand the belching sound from the surge starting, so I built a 2" perforated muffler,diffuser on the surge outlet and this broke down the bubbles and made things quiet. Bruce Carlson visited once and said it was one of the best modifications he had seen to the surge system. Even without the noise the air bubbles being pushed out of 16' of 2" pipe produced so many bubbles that the room would get bright from all the light being bounced off the air bubbles.

The creep like this was not too bad. the lights over the top of the tank took the most of it. But with an entirely open top there weren't that many places for the creep to appear.

After 10 years I switched from the Carlson surge to a 2" motorized ball valve for the surge. This was the greatest upgrade I could do. With the ball valve timed correctly you never run the surge tank to the bottom. The pipe always has full water in it. Not a single air bubble would appear ever. This not only got rid of any noises in the house but the siphon break crash outside the house.

As for the effectiveness of the surge tank. When I first setup the tank I intended for one to go on each end of the tank. For a 400g tank I had a big 30g oveflow to accommodate the extra water from the surge while the 2 2" drains take it out of the tank. But I quickly realized that the force with which the water pumped out was so much that it moved all the water in the tank. 8' down the length of the tank, 3' around the end of the tank and another couple of feet in the reverse direction - with enough force to tear lps tentacles. And that was just the main path of the water.

With my new 750g tank I don't have the ability to put the surge tank into play. Instead I have the Panta Rhei ECM63 and (2) Abyzz Flow Canons - The Flow cannons are impressive pieces of equipment. They move a ton of water. But the impact when a flow cannon kicks on is not the same amount of hard push as the surge created. The Flow Cannon easily pushes the water 10' down the front of the tank, 4' around the end and 8'+ down the back side with good flow.

Dave B

Thanks for the info!

 

[Ernie Mccracken]

As for the effectiveness of the surge tank. When I first setup the tank I intended for one to go on each end of the tank. For a 400g tank I had a big 30g oveflow to accommodate the extra water from the surge while the 2 2" drains take it out of the tank. But I quickly realized that the force with which the water pumped out was so much that it moved all the water in the tank. 8' down the length of the tank, 3' around the end of the tank and another couple of feet in the reverse direction - with enough force to tear lps tentacles. And that was just the main path of the water.

This is a cool post and lends credence to why I've always considered the surge device to be the mother of all artificial flow.

What kind of backup plan did you have in place for if/when the ball valve failed? I'd probably want triple redundancy to avoid draining my entire sump into a stuck, overflowing bucket.