plumbing up my pumps

N

Nazrac

So i have this weird question that i thought someone could answer. I have both a quietone 4000 and a mag 12. From all the classes i took in thermodynamics and fluid flow i figured i would run my quiet one as a booster pump for my mag drive. The concept i figured was that the quietone could be submerged and prime the mag drive and the mag could be mounted externally above the water line. I figured this would get me around 1000 gph due to the quiet one putting npsh (net positive suction head) on the mag pump. Now i have a 1100 kva battery backup and i was only planing on running it to my quiet one for power outages not that i get them very often but i want to make sure i still have some flow in an outage and there will be less chance of an overflow. Is there any reason i should plumb them in parralel instead. If i do the mag will be submerged and therefore i would have more heat in my tank (i assume) and i would either have to put a check valve in on the output of my mag for when the power goes out to make sure the quietone doesnt just circulate or have two seperate return pipes. The tank is drilled for drains but not for returns or closed loop. Any advice would be great.
 
I am assuming that the pumps are for your return from the sump/fug. I do not know what the NPSH is for either pump. I would guess at least 1 foot so they will lift about one foot of water column, so unless you are placing the extermnal pump very high(?) you will get very little benefit from using one to pump to the other. As far as pump capacity they are both about the same but the quite one is more efficient in its use of power and less heat generation and I have switched to them on my returns for those reasons. The mags have a little higher head/flow rating curve so if you have more than 5-6 feet of head you may want to use the mag if you are needing the higher flow on your return. If you are using the pump for your sump/fug you will not want to use its full capacity anyway or you will have too much flow thru your fug from what I can gather from your listed info. Either pump will probably provide about 750+ gph of flow and that is enough for a tank of almost 150G with an appropriately sized fug. Hope this helps. If this is for your new build I would buy another quite one and use one on each return.
 
this is definitely not for my 70 gallon it is for my 265 which has around 5.5 ft of head on it so the mag was going to go about halfway up but the fuge will be a 50 gallon tall so it will have its own throtled down flow. I dont really think i want 2 quiet ones but i guess 2 of them would probably better in parraless plus less heat maybe i should look for a trade. I am not sure i want 2 seperate returns though.
 
If you hook up two pumps on the same header your flow volume is about 65-70% of the two added up, so 2 1000 gph pumps will produce about 1300-1400 gph of flow. On separate header they will put out the 2000 gph. Just a thought. You probably don't need that much flow anyway. I have two 4000's in my 75G sump/fug each going to a 125G tank and I have them throttled back considerably, but the water surface difference is only about 3 feet between the tanks and the sump/fug. You amy be better off using the mag 12 for head. If the volume does't suit you you can get a mag 18 impeller and convert it to a mag 18 for more flow.
 
Ya what dennis said. Just go with one bigger pump. It's not that what your suggesting won't work it's jsut not a very efficient way of doing it. Get one bigger effecient pump.
 
one of the main points of doing that way is if there is a power outage my ups will hold longer i do live kinda out there. But you know just buying pumps isnt just that feasible for me. I am considering going with two 4000's. If you look at flow to watts 2 of them will outdo any 100 watt pump go figure. Here is the next question on my mag 12 the shaft and pump body are broke does the impeller come with the shaft and rubber boots? And do you just swap the impeller or the whole magnet?
 
You may be better off connecting your internal powerheads(MJ"s ) to the UPS if you expect long outages. What you need in an outage is circulation and they will give you the most bag for the buck and are very low wattage. I have my two sump/fug 4000's connected to a UPS but I only experience very short power interruptions if at all. I would use the UPS on the internal powerheads if I was experiencing long outages.
 
i dont normally experience long outages and never have but if i do i want to make sure that i dont overflow and figured that my ups would hold a 100w pump for a very long time. It is a very large ups you know the pro 1100kva model that looks like a minitower size but you are definitly right on the mj's especially with the mods on them. I think i am going to do the mag 12 to 18 mod and just go with that. I am a little worried about heat though with 3 250 mh's that will produce just alittle more heat that i am trying to avoid. I am thinking of drilling my sump and going external that only makes me wonder about noise. A hardmounted external mag 18 makes me think lots of noise.
 
You can always use a 10G as a muffler for the mag pump. Just set the 10G next to the sump and place the mag in it and fill it with water. You can pipe over the top and not drill either tank. Should silence the mag quite nicely.





______ to tank
<hr class="bbcode_rule" />
S I I I
U I I 10G I
M I I I
P I I MAG I
<hr class="bbcode_rule" />

<hr class="bbcode_rule" />
pump-
 
couple comments

if you plan to go with corals you will want more flow - without a closed loop power heads are your best choice, and hooking these up to your UPS will give you longer coverage then a main pump.

depending on what skimmer you go with I would dedicate one of those pumps to a skimmer & reactor (or other future) feed and the other as your main sump return

don't even plan on using a check valve

design the sump to handle a shutdown situation, either for a outage or pump failure.

if you go with the two pump route I suggested above, consider including a normally closed bypass that you can use if one of the pumps goes out.

nothing wrong with two returns (one left and one right) on separate pumps, but I would not hook them together in parallel or sequence. As for the in sequence thought, I know about NPSH and how it helps on your discharge height but unless your impellor on the second pump is designed for a higher velocity you will gain very little if anything at all.

sketch it out and I'll be happy to look at it. just for some ideas take a look at my build thread - I did add a second dedicated pump to my skimmer that is not shown in the sketch

depending on your set up - consider drilling for a return, but just to avoid piping up and over the tank top. more of an esthetic issue then practical

good luck with the build
 
i dont want to risk my tank to drill it. I will have a canopy so the astetic wont be that great. My 70 isnt drilled and i dont mind. I want to run my mag but am worried about heat. I was really going for the quiet one as a primming pump. I am not new to aquariums but somewhat new to reefs but i have a very good understanding of pumps and electrical due to my previous experiance but most of which booster pumps are 60 feet lower than the main pump so i have never tried it on a smaller system.
 
@Nazrac wrote:
Here is the next question on my mag 12 the shaft and pump body are broke does the impeller come with the shaft and rubber boots? And do you just swap the impeller or the whole magnet? said:
yes new mag supreme impellers come with the ends and shaft, atleast on my mag7 I just bought.

BTW MAGS despite what they say do not like to run external, they over heat and then the impeller magnet suffers.
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Thanks for the external advice and i just now thought of it but does the pump body come with screws as i have lost mine. and i need to figure out which impeller i need the pump is a 12A SO I FIgure a 18a is what i need.
 
@Nazrac wrote:
Thanks for the external advice and i just now thought of it but does the pump body come with screws as i have lost mine. and i need to figure out which impeller i need the pump is a 12A SO I FIgure a 18a is what i need. said:
No, the volute does not , I got a better grade SS screw at local ace hardware.
Click to expand...
 
well if any of you still care i have not set up my tank yet but am going a different direction. I aquired a 4-mdqx little giant for 30 bucks with the bolt holes stripped out so i drilled the whole thing bigger to 1/4 and threaded the housing the housing goes on to 1/4x20. Used 316SS 3" bolts thank you to my work. I know that its less flow but i am going for a slower turnover to my sump fuge and think that will be good enough. I got a 58g for a fuge and a 50 oceanic reefsump. and i am going with 4 modded maxijets and im talking the high flow models. So since i upgraded my mag 12 to an 18 just need to figure out what to do with it. and i did a mesh mod to my quietone 4000 to drive my kent nautilus. Works better than i ever thought.
 
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