Who/what is that skeleton in your avatar anyway @Amoo ? Sorry if it is some obvious pop culture reference. I do not even have cable television. I am cool, but not hip. I love it whatever he is.
I bought him a fish. It will go nice in your new kitchen
Ha, joke is on you guys. I turned off my "like" notifications weeks ago. You can like as many posts as you want and I'll never know it.
@Katrina71 I dunno how I'll design it yet but I can tell you right now it won't be white.
@Redleg Welcome aboard, and I'm way too cheap to put granite under a dang fish tank, I'll stick with the same 88cent/sqft tile we got in the kitchen
@RichtheReefer21 Welcome aboard. Memes in this thread are not only encouraged, but kind of like knowing your ABCs. Meming my favorite movie of all time gets you bonus points. Sadly similar to "who's line is it anyways" the points are made up and at the end you win...A NEW CAR!!!!!...or nothing, probably nothing.
I'm pulling up the recliner with a beer waiting on Cavemans response...oh, I'm sure it will be good. The suspense is Killin me. LolLooks like a great build. Pulling up a recliner... Will there be beer?
I'm mostly here for some anemones that I hope will make an appearance.
I came to the same conclusion on my returns. I am going with 2 Vectra M-1s on my 125. Both running at the same time. One per return. The pumps will go to two 3/4" Sea Swirls on the tank. Not really worried about getting maximum output from them, as they will both be dialed back, so as not to overrun my Ghost Overflow. I will have flow monitors on each. The reason I went this route is redundancy. If one pump goes down, the second will be able to run the tank until I clean, repair, or replace the faulty pump. I had a pump die on me once when I wasn't home, so that is what prompted me to go this direction.Ok guys let's talk flow. @Katrina71 asked earlier if I was going to be using mud in the fuge, and with that I can say no. Never have and don't plan to this time. I usually run 4-6" of sand, a good bit of rock, some mangroves and whatever macro algaes tickle my fancy.
For flow inside the tank itself I'll be moving over the two MP-40s from the 60G as well as the Icecap Gyre. I honestly can't remember which one I have as they change the model every 3 days, but I'll update it on the equipment list when the time comes.
Combined with good flow inside the tank I like to maintain pretty good flow through the sump itself. I personally felt there were two options here:
1. One large pump with a backup. Something like the COR 20, Vectra L1 or VarioS -8
2. Run two smaller pumps in parallel, similar to how I have my heaters setup. The options here were the COR 15, Vectra M1 and the VarioS-6
I'll be honest right off the bat I eliminated the two COR pumps from my list as I honestly do not like dealing with Neptune CS. I don't want to turn this into a gripe fest, but I've had to deal with them a few times about different things and twice I've walked away wanting to punch kittens and kick puppies.
The VarioS-6 advertises 1720GPH @ 70W max or about 24.5gph per watt. The Vectra M1 advertises 2000gph at 80W or about 25gph per watt. I would consider that a pretty negligible difference. The VarioS can be run off of my Apex, but that's not something I trust the Apex with as I personally prefer to run my return pump only directly off of a UPS in case power drops, then I have cascading backups after that.
The deciding factor for me was actually the outlet diameter for each pump. The native output diameter of the VarioS is 1.25" which is actually larger than my overflow plumbing which is only 1". This means I would have to restrict down to 3/4" at some point which means all of the advertised numbers change. This left a clear winner in my mind.
We've only ordered one for the time being as I want to see if one of these bad boys will max out my return flow on 100% power. I'm a huge fan of @Vivid Creative Aquatics RFGs and run them on every tank I have. As the tank itself already comes with (2) 3/4" return nozzles, I'll be swapping those to RFGs and running the return flow through those.
https://ecotechmarine.com/products/vectra
