Question for BeanAnimal

Belovessaltwater · Mar 18, 2023

@BeanAnimal
We recently met at elmers aquarium. We where discussing your overflow design and you told me if I had any questions I could ask you here. I have a 210 gallon aquarium I would like to drill and add an overflow to. My question is how many gph overflow would you reccomend for an aquarium that size? Also return pump and sump size? It is going to be Fowlr saltwater aquarium. Thank you for the help in advanced.

JC1977 · Mar 19, 2023

Belovessaltwater said:
@BeanAnimal
We recently met at elmers aquarium. We where discussing your overflow design and you told me if I had any questions I could ask you here. I have a 210 gallon aquarium I would like to drill and add an overflow to. My question is how many gph overflow would you reccomend for an aquarium that size? Also return pump and sump size? It is going to be Fowlr saltwater aquarium. Thank you for the help in advanced.

Can’t help with drilling an aquarium however as far as flow try to aim for 3x-5x turnover. So it will be dictated by your sump size. Ideally you want a sump that’s roughly 1/3 of the tank volume. You could go larger especially with a FOWLR with bigger fish to help handle the waste but I wouldn’t recommend going any smaller than say 50 or 60 gallons if you can. Anyhow take your 210 gallon tank plus the amount you will have in the sump while in operation and multiply that by 3-5 depending on how much flow you want. so say it’s a 60 gallon sump just hypothetical you would have about 30 gallons of actual water in sump plus around 200 in tank. 230 gallons total water volume at 3-5x turnover puts you roughly at 690-1150. Again this is a ballpark figure. Just giving you an idea of what to aim for. So look for a pump that’s rated a tad higher than the gph you’re shooting for. Don’t try to use your return pump or pumps to move too much water. Use power heads to get that 20-30x turnover in tank.