Just to answer @Wolfw28 's question somewhere where other people can find it more easily:
About the flow meters:
They should be accurate to about 10% out of the box, if you inserted the tabled calibration factor. Mine from Adafruit for example has one of 5.0 (I think). If you want more accuracy you need to calibrate it like you mentioned: capture the flow with all piping and height differences in a bucket and weigh/measure that.
About the pump:
Flow value:
The given flow values are usually idealized without any load, e.g. water straight from a tank into another tank without any pipe resistance or height difference. As soon as you connect pipes, introduce bends into those pipes or install filters, that goes down. For a freshwater aquarium with a filter you can usually expect the flow to be half the specified value or less. That goes down with time as you get biological films on all the pipe surfaces.
Pump height:
That is, I think, the maximum height the pump can manage, e.g. exactly the height, where the flow of the pump goes to zero. If we assume a linear dependency, which might not be entirely true, 1m lift of 3m Max should reduce flow by another 33%.
In total that makes:
50%*66% = 33%
So if your Setup is comparable to a freshwater aquarium filter you should have about 1/3 of the pump specified max flow or lower.
Something to keep in mind though:
The required lift might be lower than you think, if the water’s gravity also pushes into the pump. That cancels out some of the required lift. For my freshwater aquarium for example, the inlet is effectively at water level. Afterwards the water stays contained in a pipe through the pump and filter, without any contact to outside air and pressure, and re-enters the aquarium at the outlet about 2cm above water level. That means my lift height is actually 2cm, even though my pump and filter are 1m below the aquarium. Not sure how that works in a reef-aquarium, but you can send me photos of all the parts and we can work it out if you are unsure.
(...)
I do have a question for @robsworld78 on flow meters and the accuracy Reef-pi and his program you wrote for reading flow sensors I have two flow sensors both in the same system one before and one after my chiller and they both read the same but they are way far less than what the pump spec says they should be the max I can get is 70 gallons an hour on a pump rated for 520 gallons an hour With a 3 m head pressure. The pump only has to pump up less than a meter and I know for a fact that my chiller is not that restrictive so my question is is the flow meter right or is the Chinese Jebao pump way overrated any ideas other than taking a bucket and measuring how many gallons per minute I get to verify the accuracy of the flowmeters I thank you I appreciate all the help thank you @robsworld78 and @Sral for all the help you’ve given me. One other question for @robsworld78 Is there any other manuals other than the one you published which is very nice and the information on GitHub auto fruit and this form has on setting up reef pie and drivers for devices like Shelly, home assistant or Tasmota .I would greatly appreciate any direction that you could point me in to finding out how to configure and use them in Reefpi thank you again. Oh and what is OneShot
About the flow meters:
They should be accurate to about 10% out of the box, if you inserted the tabled calibration factor. Mine from Adafruit for example has one of 5.0 (I think). If you want more accuracy you need to calibrate it like you mentioned: capture the flow with all piping and height differences in a bucket and weigh/measure that.
About the pump:
Flow value:
The given flow values are usually idealized without any load, e.g. water straight from a tank into another tank without any pipe resistance or height difference. As soon as you connect pipes, introduce bends into those pipes or install filters, that goes down. For a freshwater aquarium with a filter you can usually expect the flow to be half the specified value or less. That goes down with time as you get biological films on all the pipe surfaces.
Pump height:
That is, I think, the maximum height the pump can manage, e.g. exactly the height, where the flow of the pump goes to zero. If we assume a linear dependency, which might not be entirely true, 1m lift of 3m Max should reduce flow by another 33%.
In total that makes:
50%*66% = 33%
So if your Setup is comparable to a freshwater aquarium filter you should have about 1/3 of the pump specified max flow or lower.
Something to keep in mind though:
The required lift might be lower than you think, if the water’s gravity also pushes into the pump. That cancels out some of the required lift. For my freshwater aquarium for example, the inlet is effectively at water level. Afterwards the water stays contained in a pipe through the pump and filter, without any contact to outside air and pressure, and re-enters the aquarium at the outlet about 2cm above water level. That means my lift height is actually 2cm, even though my pump and filter are 1m below the aquarium. Not sure how that works in a reef-aquarium, but you can send me photos of all the parts and we can work it out if you are unsure.