Hi everyone. I made a thread the other day which looked at hopefully getting my tank to start growing some corals. One of the suggestions was to look at increasing the flow of my tank.
I have a 180 gallon, 6 foot mixed reef aquarium. Filled with acros, euphillia, heliofungia plating coral, fleshly lps (brains, lobopylia, acans) and leather corals, (zoas, mushrooms, glass cushion corals). I have had the tank setup for the past 2 years, and the coral in there for the majority of that time. They look good, but have not really grown. I am trying to adjust different factors (light, flow, nutrients) to see what the issue may be. I am currently looking at testing the flow.
I have 4 Nero 5 Wavemakers that can put a maximum of 3000 gallon per hour per pump. I am currently running them at around 1500 gallons per hour. They are placed near the surface of the aquarium on each corner, facing the middle of the aquarium. They are not a couple centimetres away from any coral, but when I increased the flow to max or even by a little to say 1800 or 2000 gph, the heliofungia and frogspawn corals noticeably retracted and even had their tissue peel away. The flow when this occurred was set at random, ranging from 900 gph to 3000 every 5 minutes or so. I am looking at getting more acros once I solve the issue with my lack of growth, I know they will need alot of flow. I cannot angle the neros directly at the water surface but I'm not sure what is considered direct flow, if I drew a horizontal line from the neros to the other side of the wall they are not hitting anything, but above and below that line they are, is this considered direct flow?
After increasing the flow per pump, I am guessing the velocity was just too high for the lps corals. My question is: would purchasing more powerheads or even gyros, that have a wider angle than the Neros which seem to be quite targeted, be useful, it would increase the total turnover, but without blasting the lps. Is a high flow required for that increase in velocity, or overall water movement, which could be achieved by say adding 2-3 more pumps at a lower rate, rather than cranking up my pumps, which would result in a higher velocity.
Appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!
I have a 180 gallon, 6 foot mixed reef aquarium. Filled with acros, euphillia, heliofungia plating coral, fleshly lps (brains, lobopylia, acans) and leather corals, (zoas, mushrooms, glass cushion corals). I have had the tank setup for the past 2 years, and the coral in there for the majority of that time. They look good, but have not really grown. I am trying to adjust different factors (light, flow, nutrients) to see what the issue may be. I am currently looking at testing the flow.
I have 4 Nero 5 Wavemakers that can put a maximum of 3000 gallon per hour per pump. I am currently running them at around 1500 gallons per hour. They are placed near the surface of the aquarium on each corner, facing the middle of the aquarium. They are not a couple centimetres away from any coral, but when I increased the flow to max or even by a little to say 1800 or 2000 gph, the heliofungia and frogspawn corals noticeably retracted and even had their tissue peel away. The flow when this occurred was set at random, ranging from 900 gph to 3000 every 5 minutes or so. I am looking at getting more acros once I solve the issue with my lack of growth, I know they will need alot of flow. I cannot angle the neros directly at the water surface but I'm not sure what is considered direct flow, if I drew a horizontal line from the neros to the other side of the wall they are not hitting anything, but above and below that line they are, is this considered direct flow?
After increasing the flow per pump, I am guessing the velocity was just too high for the lps corals. My question is: would purchasing more powerheads or even gyros, that have a wider angle than the Neros which seem to be quite targeted, be useful, it would increase the total turnover, but without blasting the lps. Is a high flow required for that increase in velocity, or overall water movement, which could be achieved by say adding 2-3 more pumps at a lower rate, rather than cranking up my pumps, which would result in a higher velocity.
Appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!