Mag Drive 7

[trucdan]

Sorry if this question was answered before.

I want to set up a central filter for 3-4 tanks. The tanks are one 55 gals, one 30 gals, and one or two 20 gals. I am using a wet/dry filter as a central filter. Do you think a Mag Drive 7 will be enough to use as a water return pump for the sump? The height for the tank is about 3-5'.

Please tell me which pump should I use if the Mag drive 7 is not a good fit.

Trucdan

[ronrca]

Mag 7 is not bad but I think a Mag 950 or higher would be better. Imo and experience, you can never have a big enough pump! LOL! With a bigger pump, you will get a much better turn over rate in your tanks. With 4 tanks at 6' head height, your only doing around 100gph in each tank. You will have to adjust the flow rate to each tank as to 20G tanks will have a turn over rate of around 5x per hour but the 55G only 2x per hour which is a tad low!

The flow rate for the Mag 950 at 6' head height is almost double that of the Mag7!

HTH ;)

[trucdan]

Thanks Ronrca.
At bigalsonline, they have different MAg drive, inline and utility or so. Which one should I get?

Have you used the Sen 900GA? I heard that is a good one.

Trucdan

[trucdan]

Thanks OD but actually I am shopping for a Mag drive or something similar. Don't have one yet. I have a Rio 2100 for a 55 and the flow is about right, not too strong not too weak. I need a stronger one for a few more tanks in the garrage.
Trucdan

[OEG]

ODwyer, is right if you go with something bigger your going to run into trouble, you want bilogical filtration not all machanical which is what you will end up with if you have way to much flow. The 7 is perfect for the amt of tanks you mentioned and i would not go bigger than that, discus will thank you for not blowing them away with to much flow.
Oscar

[ronrca]

I use a Mag 950 for 3 20G tanks! The flow is fine! The head height is 6' so Im getting 760gph. That work out to around 253gph for each tank or 12.6x turn over rate. The only thing that gets blown away is the food and feces on the bottom of the tank! LOL! ;) I guess Im perhaps more concerned about getting the crap out of the tanks before allowing to decompose. You can always adjust the flow by using ball valves therefore if you dont need such a high flow or discus are flying out of the tanks, you can turn the flow down.

Guess it will depend on how the piping is setup! ;) Direct flow or indirect!

Check out my yahoo album for the setup! ;)

[Haywire]

Check the pump curve, I've been burned with a cheapo pump I got, make sure you get something that can give you about a 1' to 2' more head than you need. You'll loose pressure through valves, elbows, long runs etc.

Any excess flow can be used to go right back in the sump, or can be used to drive an aeration tower or fluidized bed.

[Smokey]

Great advice haywire.

One can never have too much water flow availble. It is easy to divert the excess flow . Like Ron suggested - valves are cheap and can expand ones setup.
MPE - one pump can do the work of three.

Smokey

[korbi_doc]

;D ;D I've been using Danner's Mag-drive 7 on my 90gal in the wet/dry for years with excellent results, lol, Dottie ::)