Suggestions for a Wave Maker

[mikelush78]

OK I have been doing more reading and know that its not that expensive to get a couple power heads on a special power strip that turns them on and off to simulate the ocean curents. I am thinking that this would be cool to have for my 90 gallon tank and the tank mates would like it also...

What i am looking for is inexpensive, easy to use way of doing this...
I have found this powerstrip that is a wave maker and was wondering if anyone would suggest it and if anyone has used it?
Wave maker

 

[dorkfish]

I'd go with no wave maker at all. Pointing two powerheads of equal strength at each other will create the varying currenct your tryng to make with a wave maker.

 

[fsn77]

Not all powerheads are designed to run on an on / off pattern and doing so can cause them to burn up / wear out prematurely.

As a side note, I've seen posts on other forums describing a couple of the wavemaker powerstrips as fire hazards, although I'm not aware if that particular one was one of them talked about. There's always talk about the conditions they were used under (if they got wet, were overloaded, etc.), but the people posting tend to claim there were no other circumstances that lead to the powerstrip shorting out / catching fire.

There are better ways to make random current than those powerstrips. The method talked about in the previous post is a good one. There's also a product called a SCWD that can be hooked up to a return pump from a sump or installed on a closed loop system that uses the force of the water being pumped through it to turn gears that alternately divert the flow into two separate outputs (that would be place opposite of each other). The downfall is that it reduces the output of the pump -- it is a restriction on the tubing and is using the water power to opperate. SCWDs run in the $30 - $40 range, before any required purchase of a pump, tubing, etc. I don't have one myself (yet), as I need to upgrade my pump first before I could reasonably expect to use one. But, it's on my list...

 

[bjg]

I saw this recently and thought it might help. The siphon method is a lot simpler design than switching powerheads on and off and should be very easy to build. The section of interest starts about 2/3 down the page in the section entitled "Addition of Surge Devices".

http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu/RCM/RCM/Aquarium/CirculationSystem.html