OK, Terence you got me on the filter sock part

 

I thought you were referring to a carbon reactor or canister when you spoke of "mechanical filtration"

 

 

Fu -

 

 

Actually, the rated capacities of your skimmer and mechanical filtration will determine how much water gets treated, not the sump gph flow.

 

If you have a skimmer that can skim (for example) 100g of water per hour, it will skim that same 100g / hr no matter how fast or slow water is passing through the sump.

 

So, if your sump flow gph is alot less than 100g / hr, then some of the water gets skimmed twice before getting pumped out of the sump and back into the display.

 

But, if your sump flow gph is way above 100 g / hr, then some of the water never gets skimmed before it gets pumped back in to the display.

 

Same thing if you run a canister or media reactor off the sump.

 

IMO, the ideal would be to try to match your sump gph with your skimmer gph so that most or all the water that flows into the sump gets skimmed before it returns to the display rather than being bypassed because your return pump gph is 10X higher than your skimmer pump gph. Plus, (in general) if you use "in-display" or even closed loop pumps for gph you tend to get more gph per watt of electricity used, since the in-display / CL pumps don't have to overcome the several feet of head pressure that a return pumps does...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I guess there are many ways from A->B. I agree that maybe a pump half the size I have might be better simply from a power consumption perspective.

With my 1100gph I don't see any issues in my sump or refugium. Am I missing something?