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peregrinus 
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 Topic: Closed loop?
Posted: March 09 2008 at 6:50pm |
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So i'm putting together a closed loop for a tank i'm working on and have a few questions.
i'm going to be using a mag 5 and it has 1/2in inputs and outputs. is 1/2in enough for in and out?
i'm sure there will be more questions to come.
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In Clearfield
Quantum mechanics the dreams stuff is made of.
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GARFVolunteer
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Posted: March 09 2008 at 11:18pm |
I would increase the input and output to at least 3/4" preferably 1". You would be amazed at the difference in flow.
Thanks,
Scott
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President Idaho Marine Aquarium Society
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Corey Price
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Posted: March 09 2008 at 11:37pm |
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I agree with Scott- as big as practical. 1" pipe doesn't cost much more that 1/2"...
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peregrinus
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 12:36pm |
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Thanks.. This is for a 57gal corner i'm setting up.. i'm putting in and overflow and drilling it for the closed loop. so incresse the size to 1 inch at the in and outputs? also on the output i'm going to use a swcd and i think that it has 3/4 in and out (not sure on that) would you still go 1 inch and reduce it to 3/4 then increse it again?
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GARFVolunteer
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 12:48pm |
 peregrinus wrote:
Thanks.. This is for a 57gal corner i'm setting up.. i'm putting in and overflow and drilling it for the closed loop. so incresse the size to 1 inch at the in and outputs? also on the output i'm going to use a swcd and i think that it has 3/4 in and out (not sure on that) would you still go 1 inch and reduce it to 3/4 then increse it again?
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Yes, keep the pipe 1" and reduce at the pump and the SCWD as needed to fit. We did a test a few years ago using a mag5 and a mag7. The Mag7 was plumbed with 1/2" pipe and the Mag5 with 1"pipe. Both had 4' of head. The Mag5 almost had twice the output as the Mag7. Gives you an idea how much more friction 1/2" pipe has over 1"
Thanks,
Scott
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President Idaho Marine Aquarium Society
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"How do you make poor people rich by making rich people poor" Rush Limbaugh on Obama taxes
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bbeck4x4
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 1:03pm |
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on mag pumps the pipe size needs to be doubled to get the rated flow.
so 1/2 needs to be 1"
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peregrinus
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 2:12pm |
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What if i come off the pump and go into the swcd 3/4 then off the outputs increse the size to 1 inch. will that work?
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In Clearfield
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GARFVolunteer
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 2:54pm |
peregrinus wrote:
What if i come off the pump and go into the swcd 3/4 then off the outputs increse the size to 1 inch. will that work? |
I would think yes...
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President Idaho Marine Aquarium Society
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bbeck4x4
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 3:18pm |
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the sqwd is going to cost a lot in terms of flow and pressure, to answer your question, yes it will work, if I was to do it over again, I would use 1" all of the way in hard pipe or use spa flex, then reduce at the sqwd, for the 3/4 to adapt. then go to 3/4 from the sqwd out.
there are some mods out there for the sqwd that enlarge the opening to get more flow into it. they seem to look good.
a better way would be to use a oceans motion and go 1" all of the way. then you would not loose any flow.
I started with a sqwd and ended up with a closed loop that has 1 1/2" spa flex and basiclly a hot tub pump pushing 3600 gph on 5 outlets.
now days the maxi jet mods look like they move more water with the downsides of having to try and hide them in the tank, and the heat from having the pump in the tank.
but they sure do move a lot of water.
Edited by bbeck4x4 - March 10 2008 at 3:19pm
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jfinch
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 3:49pm |
Bruce and I did a meeting on flow with a hands on measurement of flow using a Mag9.5 and different pipe sizes. There's definately a difference, even between elbow fitting types.
Below is some stuff from that presentation:
These tables can be used to size your piping. It's a give and take wrt flow and pipe size.
I suspected that most aquarium pump manufactures lied about their pump ratings, so I tested my Mag 9.5 against published data. The red dots are actual measured data. I was very impressed with how well the data fell around the curve!
And I think this is the data from our hands on demo. I say, I think this is the data, but I don't really know for sure. It was all entered into a spreadsheet during the meeting and plotted and looked very similar to this and I think I saved it. But there's a chance that this data is just made up 
Oh and finally a few rules of thumb when it comes to piping the suction side of your pump:
- Never plumb smaller then the suction fitting on your pump
- To prevent cavitation keep velocity below 5-6 ft/sec which corresponds to:
- 1/2" pipe - 300 gph
- 3/4" pipe - 600 gph
- 1" pipe - 1000 gph
- 1 1/2" pipe - 2000 gph
- 2" pipe - 3600 gph
- Try to maintain at least 6 pipe diameters of straight pipe between the last elbow in the line and the suction fitting of the pump
- Never throttle the suction side of the pump
Sorry for being so long winded.
Edited by jfinch - March 10 2008 at 3:51pm
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peregrinus
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 4:23pm |
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WOW thanks for the info thats great. The reason for the sqwd is it a cheap soultion. On this tank its only 2 to 3 feetfrom the pump to the outputs. I'm going to have a mag5 with 1" input. Do you think i maybe should not use a sqwd and just have a 1" T open flow on the system? Would that work better?
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jfinch
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 4:55pm |
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I couldn't get a sqwd for my tests so I don't have that data, but if it were me, I'd leave the sqwd off the system. Get a seaswirl of similar if you want random flow.
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bbeck4x4
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Posted: March 10 2008 at 5:00pm |
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having the water switch back and forth imho is beneficial for the corals, now at the moment I have 5 nozzles all going at the same time, no switching, you want as much flow not pressure as possible. so the larger the pipe the better the flow. also with nozzle size, larger for flow, smaller for pressure.
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