Aim for a pump that will give you 4-5 times system turnover. So say you have roughly 80 gallons total water volume aim for a pump that will give you 320-400 gph after head loss. It’s especially important not to try to push too much water through a HOB overflow as it will be loud if you do. Just enough to get water from the sump back to the tank. If you don’t have a HOB overflow already I highly recommend checking out Lifereef. My first tank had one of Jeff’s overflows on it and they’re as safe as you can get with that type of overflow. People on here will tell you don’t use them but IME it was perfectly fine. I had multiplie power outages and never lost siphon. He makes a single drain that I believe is rated up to 600 gph and would be perfect for you!
I will check it out, thank you.
Running the single drain Lifereef on the exact setup in this thread (75g with 20g long sump). Got a basic DC return pump with adjustable flow, most of the time it’s on 5/6 power (approx 350 gph) with some running water sound, if I’m watching a movie or something I turn it to 2/6 (approx 75 gph) and have a gentle flow that’s basically silent. Going six months and no issues with bubbles in the tube or siphon loss at either end of the flow rate.
Awesome man glad it’s working out for you. Wish I would have ran a DC pump with mine but I was clueless about them at that point in time.
Heh. I started out with an AC one, then found it was way overpowered for my simple soft-plumbed system, then when I looked into the full parts (inc pvc cement, primer, barb adapters, etc) to properly add a control valve the DC pump was barely more expensive. So now I have a massively oversized AC pump on a shelf waiting until I get around to trying my hand at a DIY protein skimmer.
