How many powerheads is too little or too much

Susan Edwards

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Tank is 125 gal, 6ft, 18 inches wide, 22 inches tall. 2 returns on each side of tank.
I have 4 powerheads. 3 Eflux (marine orbits) 2100 gph, and 1 3400 uniclife powerhead. Prob. running around 60% I'd guess. Is this too much for this size. Looking at other tanks in the show off your tank thread, I notice most have 2, one on each side.

I did put mesh over each one as I've got a bta on order but am worried my tank might have too much flow

Would it be better to have 2? Or 2 high and 2 lower but turned down to not blow sand. I don't really have much in the way of corals except for leathers and zoes/palys/mushrooms. Have not had success with much else!

20210320_200031.jpg
 

P-Dub

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It all depends on what you are going to keep. SPS's and I'm not sure there is too much unless you have them directed AT the corals. I have no less than 5 right now. Sometimes I have 6 and will throw in a gyre as well. SPS dominant though and all the wavemakers are doing a specific job based on placement. I have that exact tank, so...
 
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Susan Edwards

Susan Edwards

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It all depends on what you are going to keep. SPS's and I'm not sure there is too much unless you have them directed AT the corals. I have no less than 5 right now. Sometimes I have 6 and will throw in a gyre as well. SPS dominant though and all the wavemakers are doing a specific job based on placement. I have that exact tank, so...
with the overflows and not much space between rocks on one side, I thought more flow needed back there and same on the other side as flow doesn't go across so well.

I'd love to succeed with sps! Going to do another coral order and see what sticks! Fish all do super well lol's
 

Mr. Mojo Rising

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i have 5 in my 32. I turn 3 of them off during daylight hours so my clam can be happy, but for me the biggest challenge on my reef is to get rid of dead flow area's without disturbing my sandbed.
 

redfishbluefish

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First off, I like your rock work with the open caves and spaces for fish to hide and sleep.

With an sps tank, I'm of the belief that there is no such thing as too much flow. We had a club meeting at a members house with a 180 g, and a friend and I counted 12 powerheads. On my five foot 90g tank I have four MP-40's and one MP-10. Might want to take a look at what Dana Riddle said about overcoming the "boundary layer" in his 2016 MACNA talk....at about the 24:45 minute mark:



I would consider adding 2 or 3 smaller powerheads to the back wall.
 
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Susan Edwards

Susan Edwards

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First off, I like your rock work with the open caves and spaces for fish to hide and sleep.

With an sps tank, I'm of the belief that there is no such thing as too much flow. We had a club meeting at a members house with a 180 g, and a friend and I counted 12 powerheads. On my five foot 90g tank I have four MP-40's and one MP-10. Might want to take a look at what Dana Riddle said about overcoming the "boundary layer" in his 2016 MACNA talk....at about the 24:45 minute mark:



I would consider adding 2 or 3 smaller powerheads to the back wall.

Wow, so okay, 4 isn't overkill! I used to have all 4 on the back wall but they either kicked up sand or I had dead spots. Will watch the video. Right now there isn't much in the way of coral to be unhappy! Will consider adding more when I start adding coral again.
 
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Susan Edwards

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DrEggroll

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What is everyone’s thought for a non sps tank? What would I be looking at in terms of flow per gallon? I have a 4 foot by 2’by2’ 120 gallon. Right now I just have my two overflows and an 800 power head. I have a 4000gph gyre I have been too lazy to hook up. My corals are all happy
 

walloutlet

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Purely for comparison and informational sake, I have a 65ga with 2 MP40’s, 1 ReefWave Gyre and a MP10. All of which are turned quite high.

I have a lagoon style aqua scape, so lots of rocks and caves. Figure I need the water movement to get everywhere. Special grade sand as my substrate that doesn’t move much.

Like mentioned above, it seems most things (softies, LPS and especially LPS) like flow just not direct flow. So placement of equipment and corals seems to be key. Especially in a mixed reef.
 

Laith

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I agree that for SPS, more is better, especially turbulent and varying.

On my 1900l reef (display about 1600l) , I have 4x Tunze 6255s (two on each end), 2x Tunze 6155 (embedded in Tunze rocks a third of the way in from each end of the tank and 2x FX 350s Gyres side by side near the surface at the end of the tank opposite the overflow. The tank is 3m long...

At max output this gives me about 142,000 lph (almost 37,500gph) but I run them at varying speeds using my controller so probably average about 60% of that...
 

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