New main pump

chicken · Jul 8, 2022

Hi, I have a pair of Reeflo gold hammerhead pumps for my 600g fowlr system. I run one of the pumps at a time with the other as a backup on shelf in case the active pump has a problem. Otherwise I swap them every six months or so for a deep cleaning including seals and or bearings if they need it. They have been running great for years but the electricity rates in the SF Bay Area are continuing to go up. I have solar but we have so much shading from trees we cannot remove to top, it only offsets about 85% of our usage and that was before we bought an EV. The pump when it’s configured as a hammerhead (about 345w) has plenty of flow to run the returns to the main tank, the refugium, the skimmer and a few other misc chemical filters. With the barracuda impeller it drops to 235w but then I cannot get enough flow to the skimmer and fuge. I poked around last week and see pump technology has changed a lot since I bought these 8+ years ago. The issue is it seems like all of the new highly efficient dc pumps are lower powered and flow than something like a hammerhead. Is anyone aware of a bigger energy efficient pump that I could use to replace the hammerhead completely? If not what about something with some moderate flow like 1200gph at 6’ of head that’s a lot less than the 110w in power savings I get by running my Reeflo as a barracuda? Thanks

blaxsun · Jul 8, 2022

You could look at something like the Sicce SDC 9.0. It provides roughly 1850 Gph @2m of height running @100% and draws 100 watts of power (I run mine @45% or 57 watts, but I just measured the draw at 100% usage and it's 100 watts). To achieve 1200 Gph you could probably get away with running it @65-75% which would probably be a draw of somewhere in the 75-85 watt range.

mtraylor · Jul 8, 2022

I used to run reeflo dart on my 255 gallon reef tank. It ran returns. Uv, reactors and refugium. I replaced with Vectra L1/L2 and it runs at 66% power. That's all I need. Was really surprised how powerfull it was and had to dial it back to match the dart. Not to mention it's allot quiter

chicken · Jul 8, 2022

Not worried about noise. The tank is in the house and the plumbing runs out the side of the house and then underground into a 12x14’ shed/filter room. I need head pressure as it’s probably 8-9’ of vertical lift from where the pump sits to the top of the tank along with 18-20’ of horizontal run overall. The carbon and phosphate reactors, along with the fuge and skimmer sit right next to the 300g sump where the pump is so that’s all short. It’s just the run to the display tank needs some oomph.