powerhead advice...

hux

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Oct 8, 2009
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hey guys...

im setting up my first marine aquarium...
i have a 2x2x2 cube, it holds about 250+ litres

i was thinking of getting either 4 powerheads, 1 for each corner...
or 2 powerheads diagnally across from each other.

i have had advice from greech in another thread.
im am looking at maybe going with 4xkoralia k2's(will this be too much?)
or 2xkoralia k3s...

please let me know what you think is best...
and if you have any better suggestions or brands or whatever...
please add them.
thanks alot.
josh

p.s
should probably add that its going to have corals and fish...
it will have a pile of live rock setup in the middle like a cone shape
with corals coming off the live rock...
there will also be 2 small piles of live rock and coral in the 2 back corners of the tank.
 
I have a 55g and I have 2 Hydor Koralia 2's and its plenty. I can't belive how much water they move. I could not imagine having 4
 
Powerhead selection and placement tends to consist of a lot of trial and error. Each tank has its own set of factors that make it difficult to give really specific recommendations.

It's really going to depend on the types of coral you are looking to keep. If you're thinking mostly Acropora species, you'll want far more flow than if you want more fleshy corals like open brain corals, hammer, frogspawn, and so forth. The density of your rock piles will effect the flow in the tank (tightly stacked rock = very little flow passing through) in addition to location of the rockwork.

4 x Koralia #2s should give you better flow options than 2 x Koralia #3s, but I can think of situations in a tank of that size where I would consider neither adequate.

I have 2 Koralia #4s, 1 Koralia #2, and a Maxi-Jet 900 in our 90g and I find myself frequently thinking that this is barely adequate flow, even though there are corals in it like hammer, frogspawn, bubble, blastos, acans, duncans, and Scolymia. On the other hand, I have a 250g running mostly as a coral holding tank (minimal rock work, no real vertical piles) that has two Vortech MP40s running at about 80% in constant mode, and they provide all the flow I need for Montiporas and Acroporas to get decent flow without blasting the hammer, frogspawn, and torch coral colonies in the tank.
 
I would try for 2 powerheads to reduce clutter in tank.
I'm sure you can get by w/ just 2.
Koralias are cool, but I'm not familiar w/ flow rate on each model, but basically you want about 30x turnover of tank volume, or more.
I personally like tunze nano's best, a lil smaller than K's.
I prefer the 6025's, and w/ a simple mod you can increase flow if needed.
I'm getting about 1,100 GPH or more out of each one on about 7 watts.
One thing to always keep in mind is that watts = heat, so less is usually better.
 
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