What Size Water Pump Is Needed for a 55-Gallon Aquarium? Whether freshwater or saltwater, home aquariums are an enjoyable addition to your household, giving you a glimpse into a different ecosystem. Home aquariums can range from a goldfish in a bowl to extravagant tanks holding more than 100 gallons. A 55-gallon tank is large enough for a variety of aquatic life, including fish, plants and other interesting creatures, all heightening your aquarium experience. Compatibility is a key issue when setting up a home aquarium, both in the fish chosen and the equipment required to maintain it. Proper planning makes your home aquarium an enjoyable experience, as well as easily maintained one. Aquarium MaintenanceWater pumps are a vital aquarium component, maintaining the proper water flow and filtration essential for aquarium maintenance. Aquarium water that is not circulated and filtered would kill fish in a matter of days, and, since some fish are messier than others, improper maintenance could kill fish in even less time.

The water pump and filtration system continuously clean your aquarium, lessening the work required when a full cleaning is performed. Proper maintenance keeps your aquarium water clear and improves the overall water quality. Using plenty of filtration keeps your water free of toxins. Aquarium Filtration SystemsMaintaining a clean aquarium requires the proper filtration system, powered by an appropriately sized water pump. Proper filtration is accomplished on biological, mechanical and chemical levels. Biological filtration involves a special filter that removes ammonia from the water, mechanical filtration involves a filter that removes particles from the water, such as solid waste and food, while chemical filtration involves carbon charcoal, normally found in aquarium filter systems, and removes certain minerals from the system. Aquarium Water PumpsAll aquarium water pumps are either external pumps or powerheads, which must be submerged in water; inside the tank, or in an external sump.

External pumps are not submerged, and move water flow for the entire tank, not just the filtration system. A key feature of pumps is head pressure, which is the water pump's distance from the top of the aquarium. aquarium fish shop bangkokThe distance between the aquarium and water pump changes the pump flow, and must be considered when determining the proper water pump for your 55-gallon aquarium. fish tank store torontoDecide where the pump is going to rest and measure this distance for future reference. fish tank at pet storeThe Correct Water Pump for a 55-Gallon Aquarium"The rule of thumb for good water flow and turning over water in your system is a minimum of 10 times per hour. clothes cleaning

In other words, if you have a 55-gallon aquarium, you will want to choose a filter pump that can move water flow at 550 gallons per hour at zero head pressure," according to Seaquest Marine. 55 gallon fish tank onlyWhen shopping for a water pump, the gallons per hour and head pressure specifications are listed, so a pump that maintains 550-gallons per hour with a zero head pressure at the pump's distance is sufficient for a 55-gallon aquarium. 55 gallon fish tank canopy diyWhen you purchase equipment for your saltwater aquarium, like water pumps and filters, most of the time they come with a GPH (gallon per hour) rating. Sure the box says you'll get 300 GPH, but what about sources of resistance that lessen the flow rate. For example, are you using a Power Filter that is preceded by a pre-filter sponge?

How about the head pressure that a water pump will encounter if you need to pump water uphill? Are you using a Canister Filter with carbon in the media chamber, or that has a pre-filter pleated cartridge or filtering sponge? These are just a few things that can contribute to a lower water flow rate.What if you purchased or received a piece of equipment that had no box, paperwork or product identification markings? For our water flow rate test in this article, we are using a Hagen AquaClear Power Head 402 that we have in our 55-gallon aquarium for many years. This powerhead has no physical markings for identification on it, so if it were not for the box that it came in, we would not know what brand name it is, so we feel it is an appropriate choice for our test.Proper water flow, tank water turnover time and water movement in an aquarium are essential. By using these 7 simple steps, you can determine the actual GPH output you are getting from your equipment, as well as find out how many times per hour your tank water is being turned over.

A healthy tank water turnover rate to strive for is 6-10 times per hour. Many aquarists feel that more is better, especially for a reef tank system.Steps to Determine Gallons Per Hour Water Flow Rate For turning on and off the piece of equipment to fill the container and do the timing, this can be a much easier job with two people. One person for each task. If you are purchasing a new piece of equipment and want to estimate what the flow rate will be before you buy it, take the manufacturers flow rate and divide that into the actual tank water volume you got from Step 2. This will give you how many times per hour the water pump will turn over the tank water, without any resistance factors of course. That's it plain and simple. These 7 steps can be applied to any piece of equipment to determine water flow rates.So you’re building a system. You’re ordering materials, and all that’s left for you to do is to order a pump. You open the web browser, go to the pumps listed on the online shop and there are:

Which kind and which size should you get? Pump sizing varies based on whether you’re using hydroponics or aquaponics, your overall system size, and the type of hydroponic or aquaponic system you’re running (the types covered in this post are DWC, NFT, media bed, Bato bucket, and ZipGrow Towers). The two main categories of pumps that you will be choosing from are inline and submersible pumps. Submersible pumps are cooled by the water and sized in GPH. These sit directly in the water of a tank or gutter and pump water through a fitting (and hose that you attach) from the top of the pump. Submersible pumps are limited in power and are only suitable for systems with a total GPH need of 1200 or less. This fits most hobby systems, display systems, and very small commercial systems. Inline pumps are air-cooled, sit outside of your tank, and are typically suited best for larger (50 or 100+ tower) operations. Inline pumps typically have more power, which is measured not in the volume of water that they can move like submersible pumps, but in horsepower, HP.

The term “sump pump” refers to a pump that moves water from one sump tank to another or is used for turbulence and mixing nutrients inside one sump tank. These help with consistency and can help with oxygenation. We use submersible pumps for this. An air pump may be used to pump low volumes of air at a high pressure, usually for aerating water. Aeration is important to supplying oxygen to root zones and avoiding anaerobic decomposition. Seedling carts with fertilizer solutions may benefit from an air pump, for example. Peristaltic pumps are small pumps that are most often used in auto-dosing. Most auto-dosing systems come with the pumps. You can buy both main pump types on our online shop. Finding the right size of pump isn’t half as complicated as it might seem! We’ve put together easy formulas to use – one for hydroponic growers, and one for aquaponic growers. In order to determine the best pump for your system, you’ll need to do three things: If you start feeling overwhelmed at any point during this post, just pick up a phone and call one of our super-friendly team members at our office (307-288-1188) or ask a question in the chat box on the right side of the screen!

Let’s go through the 3 steps to sizing a pump; we’ll use a ZipGrow Tower system as an example. Pumps will almost always have a gallons per hour (GPH) rating that tells you how many gallons of water that pump will move every single hour. Obviously, places that favor the metric system will use liters per hour. (You can use the same equations, just remember that if you change one unit you have to change all of them.) Your total GPH is the flow rate times the units with that flow rate. In hydroponics with ZipGrow Towers, you want to run two gallons of water through each tower every hour. This means that the number of gallons per hour is essentially the number of towers, times 2. So you end up with a gallons per hour (GPH) for hydroponics equation like this: (where t=towers) *Tip: You’ll also have a bit of extra water in your sump- a good rule is to add fifty gallons for the sump. Example (DWC): DWC hydroponic system with two 500 gallon tanks. Example (Media bed): 400 gallon media bed system with a 2/hr turnover and a 60 gallon fish tank.

Now imagine that our example is ZipGrow Towers in aquaponics. In aquaponics, you’ll want to run between seven and ten gallons of water through each tower every hour. Since you’ve got the fish tanks as well, you also need to factor in the fish tank gallons. You’ll also be turning over the fish water twice every hour, so the gallons per hour for aquaponics equation looks like this: (where t=towers) Because almost all aquaponic or hydroponic growers need to move water upwards, you’ll need to also understand how efficient your pump is at different heights. Whether you’re still using a traditional horizontal grow bed model or NFT or ZipGrow Towers, you’ll still need to move water vertically from your fish tank to your beds, troughs, or Towers. To compensate for the height, we use a measurement called head height. Head height is the distance between the top of your grow bed (or ZipGrow Tower) and the top of the water in your tank. You won’t need a calculation for this.

Just measure the length between the water line in your sump and the exit point of your irrigation (in a ZipGrow system, the exit point is the drip lines above your Towers). For example: If you have an in-ground sump and the water line is one foot below ground level, and you’re irrigating your Towers 5.5 feet above ground, your head height is 6.5 feet. All pumps will come with a chart similar to this one: This chart is going to be your cheat sheet for pumps. This one specifically matches the strength of Active Aqua pumps, and other pump brands will come with their own chart. (Make sure you’re using the right chart for your type of pump! Inline pumps and submersible pumps function differently.) Using the GPH you calculated and your head height, find the pump that matches your needs. Pump efficiency at different head heights is almost never a linear relationship (again, check out the example on our pumps). Inline pumps will also have GPH or GPM listed and come with a curve that shows the GPH and head height intersections.

This means that the sizing an inline pump requires the same steps as sizing a submersible pump. One note is that if you’re running a large operation, then you’ll probably want to order a pump with extra power so that you don’t have to buy a new one when you scale up. If you’re having trouble sizing a pump for a large operation, please get in touch with our farm guides. They can help you outfit your system, figure out plumbing, and much more. When choosing a pump, remember that our recommendation of turning over your entire system volume at least twice per hour is a recommendation. If you shoot a little long, or fall a little short of this recommendation, everything will probably be just fine. Just remember that every aquaponics or hydroponics system out there varies considerably. Whether it’s the plumbing, system design, grow media, etc., every system is different and required GPH can vary because of it. If you are growing aquaponically, you must be exchanging your water fast enough to maintain a good level of dissolved oxygen in your system.