35x water turnover rate too much?

Altohombre · Mar 2, 2008

I have a 46 gallon bow front which I am turning into a reef. Right now I only have 1 Frogspawn and 2 clowns, a flame angel, and 2 shrimp. I currently have a Hydor Koralia 3 setup giving me 850gph, but I would like to add more flow so that it is not a linear flow. Would adding another Koralia 3 be too much flow (35X turnover) or should I add a #1 or #2? I don't want too much water movement that the fish will struggle or the corals will not be happy.

Thanks

harryk · Mar 2, 2008

for what you have now it might be a little too much I think 20x turnovers is more of an average for most people, but more is not necessarily bad. But if you decide on SPS corals then 35X turnover is perfect.

Harry

Olivier · Mar 2, 2008

Sorry to hijack your topic. I would like to know how to do have such a high turn over in water flow? I have a 125 gallon tank, in order to create a 30x turn over, I need to have a very strong pump for both closeloop and return pump. 3750 gallons/hour is needed for a 30x turn over.

mynd · Mar 2, 2008

I don't think it is too much.. I have a 12 gallon tank and I am pushing 500+GPH in my tank. I think it is just right for just about everything. Acans come from shallow, high light turbid waters so they should be very happy with that amount of flow..

Hawkeye · Mar 2, 2008

deadcpu said:
Sorry to hijack your topic. I would like to know how to do have such a high turn over in water flow? I have a 125 gallon tank, in order to create a 30x turn over, I need to have a very strong pump for both closeloop and return pump. 3750 gallons/hour is needed for a 30x turn over.

Altohombre already has a koralia 3 and is thinking of adding another koralia 3 - so he's thinking of having a total of 2- pushing 1700 gph - which would be 30x turnover.

On my 55 I have a tunze 6060 and a seio - (not counting the return) - already pushes me over 35x.

On a 125 - you could get a tunze ts24 kit. Or a more cost-effective solution may be 3 koralia 4's if you don't need the controller.

Keep in mind this kind of flow may kick up the finer sand; depending on how you angle the PHs.

Altohombre · Mar 4, 2008

Right now I only have a Frogspawn in my tank. I have heard they don't like a lot of flow so wouldn't 30x rate be too much for it?

JerseyWendy · Mar 4, 2008

If you only have a frogspawn in the tank right now, then why not leave it? Here is how I did it: When I originally set up my 75 I had 2 Koralia #4s, which were too much for tiny frags, so I switched one of them to a #2. All was well. Since everything has grown considerably, I just recently upped the flow back to 2 X #4. I have a mixed reef, and my turnover (including return) should be right at 40.

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Wendy

JRWOHLER · Mar 4, 2008

Altohombre said:
Right now I only have a Frogspawn in my tank. I have heard they don't like a lot of flow so wouldn't 30x rate be too much for it?

I have a Koralia 2 and my standard pump ... so just under 35X total turnover. I have a lot of surface movement (which keeps the rest of the tank moving pretty nicely) but of course do not direct anything right at the Frogspawn, you can rip the soft parts away from the skeleton.

Altohombre · Mar 4, 2008

you guys who only have 2 power heads... are you using the surge method of pointing the two heads directly opposite in flow from each other?

blange3 · Mar 4, 2008

I would get a small maxijet and put it on a timer to create a surge. Point in at the Koralia and run it intermittently.

For my 75 that is dominated by frogspawns and hammers, I have a mag 7 return and 2 MJ1200's. I run the maxijets from an aquacontroller. I time one for 1 minute on and 3 minutes off and the other for 1 minute on and 4 minutes off. Creates a variety of surge cycles.

What's really cool is every 20 minutes both pumps come on at the same time and create a whole new flow pattern. The pumps are mounted near the center brace and point across each others flow to the opposite corner. So when they come on together they stir the middle of the tank real good.

eric65 · Mar 4, 2008

When I had my 46g bow, I had 2 Koralia 3's, a Seio M620 and a 1/2" Seaswirl connected to a mag5 as a return from the sump for my circulation needs.

Hawkeye · Mar 4, 2008

Altohombre said:
you guys who only have 2 power heads... are you using the surge method of pointing the two heads directly opposite in flow from each other?

I don't - but that's because I don't know any better...lol. Lots of people have frogspawn in tanks with high flow...but the key is that they don't sit directly in front of that flow. Dunno if that helps or not - but my tunze is situated in the mid-part of the tank blowing across - and my froggy is at the farthest point (below) the tunze...

btw- watch your placement of this coral as it will launch stingers at night...bax had a video of his stinging all his sps.