Water movement, what is best for our reef

[spykes]

There are crazy flow out there, many thing conclude coral heath and growth patterns, besides water parameters i think flow and light are the most important. the creation of water movement requires the knowledge of most natural reef enviorment. I think we should explain our water movement and why we have chose the equipment we have to create the type of flow we require.

lemme start i have 30x turn over 1 seio and 2x MJ900s
i know that's a low turn over for SPs, but i notice a format of push and pull after my friend reefoman use a wavebox and 6100 on his system.

mainly my reef begins

each pump pushes in a circle since they arent that strong, but previous water movement isnt crashing againest each other slowing down each stream of water therefore the water moves in a circle in my tank, nice and gentle getting all around to all the SPS and LPS

please post up your equipment and how you produce your flow.

 

[nanoreefer22]

Heres mine, not the best but I'll try to explain it. The Tunze and the Seio meet about mid way along the front glass and create pretty random flow for the entire tank. The return which is a mag 7 is pointed straight down along the back glass to help sweep the back of the tank towards the front(The dark arrows). Then on the right side I have a aquaclear 301 sweeping the bottom and a modded mj1200 on the other side sweeping the bottom as well. Those are the dark lines. It works well for me getting flow to all parts of the tank, still have a low flow area or two but its working well so far.

BTW the tank is a 65g(36l x 18w x 24h) and I think its right around 60x turnover.

 

[jackson6745]

How do you draw these diagrams?

 

[Tonyscoots84]

Ummmmm rich looks like Microsoft Paint... Lolz...:scratch:

 

[jackson6745]

Duh I don't have Microsoft Paint

 

[kimoyo]

Okay, here's my flow.

I alternate the streams so I'm only showing the flow from the stream on the right. Regardless of how I aquascaped my rocks I didn't want anything touching the walls. And since I don't have an interal overflow, the flow just pushes thru and rounds the corner to the front and back around. While its flowing around some of it bounces off the walls and/or spreads out, so that it crosses over the island.

 

[Tonyscoots84]

ok for the most part this is my idea of the flow in the 75 gallon..

-1 tunze 6060 for now.. will be adding 1 later on..
-return pump mag drive 9.5 split of on a T to split water coming into the tank
-MJ 900 to lift off crapola off the floor...

this is my sloppy drawing on how i think the flow is going to work..

my total gph turnover would be i think 46gph to start off.

i will be adding another tunze 6060 for a total turnover of 67 gph...

 

[nanoreefer22]

Tony,
Just to get ya thinking, with a mag 9.5 split 4 ways you're going to have very little flow coming out of each individual nozzle. A 75g is a long tank, I doubt the flow will make it to the opposing ends, after headloss and all the elbows you put in. You're probably going to need more to sweep the bottom of the tank than a mj900, so you might want to look into something more there as well.

Set up the tank first and set the flow how you have it in the diagram, then pick out your dead spots and either change the flow pattern or add a powerhead(small) to the mix and call it a day.
-Kris

EDIT
Don't forget to factor in your rock structure, this will greatly change the flow in the tank.

 

[Tonyscoots84]

good lookin kris... im hoping its all gonna work out well.... ill just keep my fingers crossed and wish for the best...

 

[nanoreefer22]

good lookin kris... im hoping its all gonna work out well.... ill just keep my fingers crossed and wish for the best...

No wishing just some good planning

 

[Tonyscoots84]

ohhh n dont forget another tunze 6060(ms. tunza 2) comming soon...

 

[Tonyscoots84]

No wishing just some good planning

with all your help and from the family here i think so much more planning went into this tank then my 29 gallon.. thanks alot really off topic..

 

[DRZL]

No wishing just some good planning

Hey thats what I always say!

U learn fast grasshoper

 

[nanoreefer22]

Hey thats what I always say!

U learn fast grasshoper

It's cause i got the ill reef sensei :lol:

 

[jhale]

I have very few rocks touching the marina board.

The flow from the tunzes disperses nicely and keeps things moving.

The two powerheads on the bottom are on a wave maker and sweep the back corners of debris.

The other side did not have a problem with debris so I did not place any powerheads there.

In the future I plan to add two vortech pumps to the left side of the tank and move the tunze's

to the right. They will be placed on timers.

 

[NYPDFrogman]

I dont have a specfic pattern right now I have a tunze 6080 on one side opposite my return ( iwaki rlxt40)
seems to be OK tank is doing well.
for my 450 I ordered (fromreef exotics a tunze TS40 stream kit and it will have dual returns via sequence barracuda.


I've spent my share of time in the water and can say that aside form the ebb and flood currents it's never the same always different depending on wind, moon, temperature conditions vary, even in the same location.

if you were trying to replicate the wild direction gradually change over a 6 hour period (ebb and flood) and have some type of varying wave stimulation.
lets not forget the depth vatriance either which definitly effects coral.

I do try to move my tunze stream pump so it flows differently across my tank

 

[fritz]

Laminer flow = evil

I point everything to the oposite corner of the tank. This pretty much creates a focal point dead center on the front glass. I get great random turbulant flow evidenced by some yellow polyps that I scattered around the tank to use as a guide.

When they bob in a different direction every few seconds I know that my flow is perfect and most importantly, not laminer.

I used to use a SCWD which I loved until it clogged. I'm not a fan of the barbs that they use but it is a great product for surge type flow (on a smaller tank).

 

[alrha]

maybe this can give you an idea of my flow pattern (i would like to eventually add another Stream or a Vortech).

 

[cali_reef]

People with 4 feet or longer tanks should look into wave box for water motion, it does wonders for moving water in every nook and cranny. Sometime motion is better than flow.

 

[fritz]

Motion is always better then flow no? Laminer flow is BAD, at least that's my understanding. I'm not a Tunze havin' SPS guy so maybe it's different but for everything else I know random turbulant or surge is what you want. Laminer can be damaging plus leads to dead spots. Having a giant whirlpool is not what you would want in a reef. True?