How do you decide where in the flow to place polyps & such?

[AnnetteG]

Where in the Flow? LOL Might become a new catchphrase! :p:

So anyway, I was just wondering if you can tell if certain corals like certain levels of flow or what?

I just picked up a few little polyps and mushrooms and am trying to figure out the best places to put them, both for light level and for flow.

[Reefscape]

One easy answer to this question...."Research prior to purchase"...

All corals have different needs as to where they are best placed..

[dilbert]

Web sites like http://www.liveaquaria.com/ have some rough guidelines.

Rough in the sense that they say low/medium/high and then you're stuck with that definition. :grinyes:

Sometimes people give some figures like 10 cm per second or the like.

Helpful is also when the LFS has different tanks for low/medium/high flow. You just check how fast the flow is in there for the animal you got from there.

But many have only a large tank with different flow and toss everything in there and maybe it's the wrong flow but doesn't matter if it's only for a week or two. :grinyes:

The same with the light. It's worth to remember roughly the light level from where you bought it but you can never be sure.

And light levels (low/medium/high :grinyes:) are more difficult to determine as it's not only watts per gallon but depends on water depth, position in the tank and the light source itself.

[Amphiprion]

You have rough guidelines. However, you will have to experiment a bit. Once you have a fair amount of knowledge as to what the corals look like when they are "happy," as well as the flow zones in your tank, you will be able to intuitively place things properly. It is just something that comes with time, experience, and knowledge. For now, get a rough estimate from websites and play around with it a bit to figure it out better.

[Grins]

I agree with both Amp and the thoughf ot researching prior. Generally you'll find that most things don't want direct flow but some things like stonies will want high flow where LPS will want moderate flow.

[AnnetteG]

I do go to live aquaria and read everything on there, I was just wanting some second opinions. I also research before purchase, but I am ummm, vulnerable to the "Ohhhh that's so Pretty!" impulse buys. However, even then, I don't buy what I know I CAN'T have with my lights. So, I just thought I'd ask how you all decide where to put things. Like the Green Star Polyps I got for instance. I had them on the bottom of the tank at first but they hardly even came out, so I moved them up and now they're in a spot where they are blowing around quite a bit, but they're all out and "grassy" looking now, so I guess that means they like it. They're closer to my Koralia 2 than the 4 though. When the 4 was blowing right at one of my feather dusters, it stayed in it's tube. When I turned it away, it came right out. I thought those guys liked fairly high flow. Live and learn, right? :)

[Grins]

They do like high flow...but not direct flow.