Maxspect Gyre

[pdiehm]

I'm thinking about getting one of these for my 5' long 120.

Couple of questions:

Vertical or horizontal? I would think horizontal near the top blowing across the tank to the other end would be better, but wanted to get actual user thoughts.

What mode? I kind of like the pulse, but I worry about the noise from it ramping up and down, so I'm thinking about doing the alternating mode. Question I would have is, what time interval would you recommend, and power levels?

I would love to be able to remotely switch the mode using the iphone. For example, at night, go from alternating to say steady 10%, and then ramp it back to alternating mode during the daylight hours.

just trying to get actual Gyre owner thoughts before I plop down the $ and get one.

 

[hart24601]

Horizontal sure works better unless you have a solid reason for mounting vertically such as looks or a specific flow pattern. I think there is a new mount for the noise, mine never bothered me running 100% on pulse, but there is some noise. Really I think most of your questions are pretty tank specific and you will just need to play around with one to decide how much noise you are comfortable with and the type of flow you prefer. I like pulse myself.

 

[Larry L]

I have a 130, so it has the newer mounts that are quieter, and I like it a lot. I'm running it in a 50 breeder and tried both vertical and horizontal, and with the layout of my rock and the overflows, it turned out that having it horizontal and blowing across the top from left to right works best. When I feed, I can see the food shoot across the top, then down and back across the other way. (I'm sure you'd want the 150 for your tank.)

I use the pulsed mode, and have it set to pulse maybe 4 seconds on, 4 seconds off. This creates an almost-constant gyre flow (clockwise if you're looking at the front of the tank), but the pulses keep it from looking like everything is continually being blown sideways, and things tends to sway back and forth a bit. I tried alternating, but I found that (at least for shorter intervals), whenever it reversed direction it was initially just spending a lot of energy slowing down the flow from one direction to make it go the other way, so that did not seem very efficient.

I have it set on maybe 60% and that seems to work fine for a three foot long tank. If I'm close to the tank, I can hear a tiny noise while it pulses on.

 

[pdiehm]

I will be getting it on Friday. I am toying with alternating mode. 12 forward, 12 backwards to simulate the calm of night time waters. Say 7am-7pm forward, 7pm-7am backwards.

 

[ghostman]

I have several gyre 150s on my tanks, and love them with the new mounts. Very quiet, and great flow. I prefer horizontal mount, pulse mode with about a 2 second pulse. I have them about 2-3" below water level. I get great surface turbulence, and more than enough flow as it hits the front glass. I don't think it can go 12 hours forward and 12 hours back as described above. Pulses are in seconds. There will be Apex control by summer, and that will make it even better.

 

[Larry L]

I will be getting it on Friday. I am toying with alternating mode. 12 forward, 12 backwards to simulate the calm of night time waters. Say 7am-7pm forward, 7pm-7am backwards.

Just be aware that each of the two rotors are directional. So when they are running in "reverse" mode, they will be moving a lot less water (for the same 1-10 setting) as when they are moving "forward" (it sounds like you are aware of that, since you plan to run "reverse" mode at night).

 

[mrjlopez731]

Thanks for some insight because I myself had in mind of purchasing this also. I know it's not yet but good to get some info before hand.

 

[-Logzor]

Without the new mount the pulse is really loud, unusable in my opinion. If you pay for the $10 new mounting bracket (has free shipping from Coralvue) it's dead silent, no matter how you ramp it, even my Tunze are louder.

 

[lactose]

I have two, one each on twin 150G 48"x24"x30" tanks mounted horizontal 2-3" below water surface and it is set to 30% in constant or one click higher with a pulse of a few seconds. As others have said reverse isn't doing a gyre the other way as much as less water pushed less directly so that didn't work for me. I can move it up to 40/50 but the sand starts to move a bit too much. All my corals love it and I have no complaints. I am especially happy as I can really only put pumps on one end of each tank given my layout so these do a great job getting water movement all the way across - better than MP40s did for me.

I got the quieter mount for $10 for my original gyre 150 from coralvue and when I ordered my second one recently it came with the new mount in the box.

I look forward to Apex controllability as that is the only thing I am missing right now.

 

[Rasengan]

i don't think the oceans are any calmer at night time

i tried reverse and because of the directional nature of the rotors, they don't produce anywhere near as significant flow as forward...if you wanted true reverse, it'd be better to get 2 gyre's, 1 on each side with them alternating

 

[Larry L]

I don't think it can go 12 hours forward and 12 hours back as described above. Pulses are in seconds.

Pulse mode can be set between 0.4 seconds and 30 seconds, but alternating mode can be set between 2 minutes and 12 hours.

There's a copy of the manual here: http://www.jlaquatics.com/manuals/maxspect/gyre_user_guide.pdf

 

[ghostman]

Pulse mode can be set between 0.4 seconds and 30 seconds, but alternating mode can be set between 2 minutes and 12 hours.

There's a copy of the manual here: http://www.jlaquatics.com/manuals/maxspect/gyre_user_guide.pdf

Interesting. I stand corrected. I guess I was thinking of pulse mode only. As indicated above, alternating mode is extremely weak in the reverse direction, almost nonexistent. I would worry that the flow would be too little for 12 hours straight in alternating. I'm hoping that some different rotor configurations become available to enable a better reverse flow even if forward flow is sacrificed a bit. There are many possibilities. Thanks!!

 

[Rasengan]

Well you could always go in A|A configuration. I tried this as well and simply didn't like the fact that one entire side wasn't getting good forward flow. But this way was better than doing forward/reverse using A|B configuration.

 

[pdiehm]

That's the plan

 

[pdiehm]

Got it and 30% constant at the moment during cycling.

Once that's done probably will be going to 20 second pulse...gives me time to figure that out. Haven't quite figured out how to set the duration