Ideal number of pumps & placement for good water movement

[Charles]

Hi I got a 168 Gallon tank. How many pumps must I put and where should I locate these pumps? Is there a formula in computing the number of pumps to be placed to get ideal water movement? My tank is a mixed tank, half is softies, half is hard. I will put SPS on top while LPS (like hammer, elegance, etc) on the middle to bottom part of the hard coral half of the tank. Have problem with some LPS like bubbles, cynarina being push into one direction because of strong current. I am thinking either I have wrong placement of pump or too much pumps in it. Please help. Thanks.

[jenajet]

What size pumps and what is the gph they are producing?

[Charles]

I got three pumps inside, Rio 2500 740gph, Rio 1700 630 gph and another unknown brand with 211gph. Are these too much? or just wrong placement? Rio 2500 is on top while the other two at the bottom.

[LISound]

The best is to put the 2 biggest in each opposing corner of the tank and have them pointed at each other...that will create good random flow.
You might want to use the smaller one and aim it towards the back of the rocks to make sure nothing settles there.

But that's a start...Later on down the road you may want to consider other options, which I'm sure folks will mention.

[Geoff]

most people try and shoot for at least 20x of turnover for softie/LPS tanks. the object of the flow is to be strong enough to keep the detritus is suspension to be removed by the skimmer, yet weak enough to keep the sand/corals where you put them.

G~