So one anecdote is by no means enough to make any conclusion, but for those regular readers perhaps you can file this away for future reference in case someone else has a similar experience. In any case, a year ago I started my first nano, a Fiji Cube 22. Love, love, love the mini-reef and only wish I had bought one years ago. However, the growth during the first year was a fraction of what I am used to in my 240 which has been running since 2007, but more important to this thread is the fact that about a month ago I added a Bubble Tip anemone.
The 'nem cruised the tank for a month in an endless search for a happy spot with seemingly no luck. Then even worse a week ago I found the 'nem floating freely in the water column spinning around. I gently tucked it into a a crevice and hoped nothing bad was going on. I tested everything I could and scoured the interwebs; the best I could surmise was perhaps the 'nem was not feeling an adequate amount of flow or light or both, but I was using 2 AI Primes on an 18 x 18 x 17 tank and showing 200-400 PAR on the rock work. What was worse was I really don't like the look of white LED lit tanks and both Primes were already at 100% on the blue, 80% on the UV, and 50% on violet, and 10% on the whites. Raising the whites would ruin the color in my view so that was out of the question. Anyways, long story long, I ended up lowering the lights to the lowest I could, and my return pump was adjustable and had been on the lowest setting so raising the flow required a simple turn of the dial.
After adjusting the Primes to a lower height, PAR on the sand bed went from 120-50 to 220-250 but still less than 450 at the highest point on the rock work. More importantly the 'nem has stayed put for over a week now. Hopefully it has finally found it's happy spot The point here is that if I had only 1 AI Prime I would not have been able to create 200-250 PAR all over the bottom of my 18 x 18 x 17 tank. (I took measurements with just one Prime and got 150ish) and that was surprising to me. Maybe folks here don't find that surprising, but honestly I would have figured one AI Prime was good enough for anything, SPS or 'nem, in an 18 x 18 x 17 tank, but now I really don't think one would be enough.
So there it is . . . my thought for the day
The 'nem cruised the tank for a month in an endless search for a happy spot with seemingly no luck. Then even worse a week ago I found the 'nem floating freely in the water column spinning around. I gently tucked it into a a crevice and hoped nothing bad was going on. I tested everything I could and scoured the interwebs; the best I could surmise was perhaps the 'nem was not feeling an adequate amount of flow or light or both, but I was using 2 AI Primes on an 18 x 18 x 17 tank and showing 200-400 PAR on the rock work. What was worse was I really don't like the look of white LED lit tanks and both Primes were already at 100% on the blue, 80% on the UV, and 50% on violet, and 10% on the whites. Raising the whites would ruin the color in my view so that was out of the question. Anyways, long story long, I ended up lowering the lights to the lowest I could, and my return pump was adjustable and had been on the lowest setting so raising the flow required a simple turn of the dial.
After adjusting the Primes to a lower height, PAR on the sand bed went from 120-50 to 220-250 but still less than 450 at the highest point on the rock work. More importantly the 'nem has stayed put for over a week now. Hopefully it has finally found it's happy spot The point here is that if I had only 1 AI Prime I would not have been able to create 200-250 PAR all over the bottom of my 18 x 18 x 17 tank. (I took measurements with just one Prime and got 150ish) and that was surprising to me. Maybe folks here don't find that surprising, but honestly I would have figured one AI Prime was good enough for anything, SPS or 'nem, in an 18 x 18 x 17 tank, but now I really don't think one would be enough.
So there it is . . . my thought for the day