Flowrate question.

J

JD333

AC Members
Dec 31, 2007
7
0
0
I'm planning on a 60g reef tank. I have 2 koralia 4's on order but after reading the thread on flowrate (10x for fish only and 25x for reef) I worry that what I ordered is just producing too much current....since a koralia 4 produces 1200gph I would be doing 40x and that's not including the flowrate from the return pump. My LFS owner assured me that the 25x for reef is the minimum requirement and hinted to me that there is no such thing as a maximum. But what about the fishes and the sand on the bottom? Should I be better off with 2 koralia 3's instead?

P.S Where are the best places to put the powerheads? I was thinking of installing one on both top corners of the rear glass (how much below the water surface I do not know....suggestion needed), with the powerhead aiming at 45 degrees.

Appreciate any advice.
 
The dimensions of the tank is 40(width)x16(depth)x27(height). Should I be worried about the fishes and the substrate with that strong a current?
 
Animals from reefs endure current rates that we would be hard pressed to duplicate.Millions of gallons of water crosses a 1 meter square area every hour. Inso, with the exception of some special needs animals such as seahorses, you cannot get to much current. Now with that being said, corals have a wide array of water flow rates and patterns. Some require low flow gentle patterns all the way up to extreme high flow turbulant patterns. As to the fish handling 40 times turnover I have damsels, an angel, foxface lo,lunar wrasse, checkerboard wrasse, red devil grouper and a snowflake eel in a tank with 60 times turnover. And I have seen most of them just swim directly into the current from the pump for exercise. They don't hardly react to the flow any other time. As archer suggests start at about 8 inches down with pump placement and then you can adjust hieght and angles of the pump depending on water circulation in your tank. (ie. No flow areas, or areas where the sand bed is being moved, surface aggitation, ect)
 
Thanks! Great advices everyone. For a second there I thought that my LFS just wanted to sell me a more expensive powerhead that I don't need. Glad to know that that isn't the case.

Is there a way to check for no flow areas though? (other that waiting for algae to form)
 
JD333 said:
Thanks! Great advices everyone. For a second there I thought that my LFS just wanted to sell me a more expensive powerhead that I don't need. Glad to know that that isn't the case.

Is there a way to check for no flow areas though? (other that waiting for algae to form)
Click to expand...

You can suck up some sand in something like a turkey baster lightly squirt this into area's which you suspect have a lack of flow...If the sand drops to the bottom, then you have very low flow in that area, and then i would suggest you try changing the direction of a powerhead to compensate...

Niko
 
I have two Koralia 4's in my 75g. I placed then in the side corners facing the middle of the tank. It is a tad tricky to keep the sand in place but I really like the flow. I even play on adding a couple maxi jets along the back at some point. I have about 3000-3200 turnover in my tank. That equates to around 40x turnover. It's not bad at all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom