Flow questions

Geonet · Apr 2, 2020

Hydor Koralia Circulation and Wave Pump

Hydor Koralia Circulation Pumps and Wave Pumps are the next generation Koralia pumps that boast greater energy-efficiency and enhanced features. Higher efficiency Hydor Koralia pumps generate up to 20% more water flow at HALF the energy consumption. Compact, Energy Saving, Controllable Powerhead...

www.petmountain.com

This ok for a 75g ?

Geonet · Apr 2, 2020

gonna grab 2

Trylobyte · Apr 2, 2020

Geonet said:
Hydor Koralia Circulation and Wave Pump

Hydor Koralia Circulation Pumps and Wave Pumps are the next generation Koralia pumps that boast greater energy-efficiency and enhanced features. Higher efficiency Hydor Koralia pumps generate up to 20% more water flow at HALF the energy consumption. Compact, Energy Saving, Controllable Powerhead...

www.petmountain.com

This ok for a 75g ?

Yeah those would be perfect size. 4*425 = 1,700 GPH. Divide that 1,700 / 75 = 23 (rounded). So you'd be 23x your tank volume in flow rate. Thats about half of what you would need for those high flow corals, but you could place them closer to a powerheads flow and compensate maybe

Geonet · Apr 2, 2020

hope they can be turned downed with me adding little Frags

Crustaceon · Apr 2, 2020

Geonet said:
hope they can be turned downed with me adding little Frags

Don’t worry about flow affecting small frags too much. I have acropora and various small polyp stony corals (sps) frags in a 55 gallon tank with 4800gph of flow (87x). My fish are also perfectly happy in this much current too. Saltwater reefs are a whole different animal compared to freshwater tanks. A lot of things you’d use in a freshwater tank typically aren’t used in saltwater setups such as hob/canister/undergravel filters. For a tank like yours, it would be more typical to add enough sand to create a 1-2” thick bed and around 100lbs of rock. If you ran a sump system, you could run less rock in the display and maybe some biological filtration media like a marine pure brick or some seachem matrix. A sump isn’t necessary of course and it has its pros and cons. A lot of people will say you need it. They’ll also say you need $900 lights. The truth is you don’t need either. Simply setups can grow coral perfectly fine. They just take more care than other more complicated setups.

For flow, it you want to go low-medium, a bunch of hydor koralias is fine. Get at least two of the 850gph ones. If the flow is too much, you can always direct some of the flow towards the surface.

For high flow, you’ll want 3000gph or more and an even better idea would be to have that in randomized flow. I’m thinking a pair of Jebao pp-8/ow-25’s because they’re cheap, have great flow and decent features. They’ll move over 4000gph at full speed, but they are adjustable and you can slow them down to just where you want them to keep from blowing sand/corals everywhere and to reduce noise. They also come with controllers that have preset flow patterns. One is a somewhat randomized flow pattern called “else” mode. Most people use that one. There are better pumps out there, but expect to pay twice as much for them, which may or may not be worth it. I’ve used $200 worth of jebaos and $600 worth of maxspect gyres. I got rid of the gyres, and went back to the jebaos. I didn’t feel like the gyres were a noticeable improvement over a pair of pp-15s and I had far less trouble in positioning the jebaos than the gyres.

If you don’t want to go the sump route, i’d recommend adding a protein skimmer as it will remove a lot of junk from the tank before it breaks down and you have to remove it manually. You can find them in HOB or in-tank styles for your tank as it sits and plenty of in-sump styles too. Keep in mind like sumps, protein skimmers are not mandatory items, but they will keep your tank cleaner in general and will reduce the water volume needed for regular water changes. Which brings me to...

Maintenance. Every week to two weeks you’re going to want to siphon the crud out of the sand and replace 10-20% of the tank's water with freshly mixed salt water. Do not use tap water as it can contain a lot of things that are really toxic to our critters. I highly recommend either investing in a reverse osmosis/deionized water system or at the very least few two 7-10gallon water containers and finding a source for ro/di. Aquatic warehouse is a great source. The most important thing to remember is that you’re not keeping fish and corals. You’re keeping water. This means providing clean water at the proper parameters and in a stable manner at all times.

Trylobyte · Apr 2, 2020

Geonet said:
gonna grab 2

I just noticed this message. 2 of those definitely are not gonna give you the flow that you want. If you looked at the ratings they are only rated 15-20 gallons in saltwater. You would at the very least need 4 of those size. If you're only going 2, then you need to beef up that GPH quite a bit and will be limited on positioning (either back corners pointed toward middle front glass, or sides pointed directly at eachother).

@Crustaceon gave some terrific points above as well and as you can see he is running over twice as much as that 40x tank volume. And even with 4 of those Koralia 425's you're only gonna hit 23x(rounded, its 22.66 your tank volume which really isn't high flow, it's right around the medium mark. And as he said, these guys survive ocean flow, with waves crashing sometimes, they will handle your tank just fine