Lets Talk about FLOW and SPS!

[Charlie’s Frags]

@Chaswood79 i am envious as always of your PE. I have none. Ever.
I also have 2 dwarf angel fish


corey

I’ve never had an angel fish. The only fish I have desired are the blue and yellow assessors. I had 2 delivered on Tuesday and woke up to this earlier today

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I agree, I would never use a gyre style pump in a tank by itself. I have been wanting to add a wavebox but keep putting it off. I use an ocean motion with a wave puck pump on constant to break things up and pulse on the other pumps. I still feel like a wave box would be an upgrade though.
My optimal setup would be two ocean motions on either end with good pumps with wide flow pattern on them and a wavebox as my main flow.
I haven’t looked for a while but are other companies making decent versions of the tunze box?

Maybe what I use is a sea sweep actually, whichever is the one with the black box that holds a pump and rotated it back and fourth.
These really help keep colonies natural looking in smaller tanks.
I am very suprised jda is the only one using a wave box. This is my next purchase.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Nice vid @Chaswood79 When are you going to convince your better half to get rid of those ugly P.mutuki's?

I can answer that as soon as you tell me what a p.mutuki is

 

[biecacka]

Man that stinks! I’m sorry to hear


corey

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Man that stinks! I’m sorry to hear


corey

It really stunk for the assessor.

 

[biecacka]

Yeah it sure did! Aside from that, your tank is still pretty amazing maybe minus the free aptasia

corey

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Yeah it sure did! Aside from that, your tank is still pretty amazing maybe minus the free aptasia

corey

Thank you very much

 

[fredk]

...
Some of these colonies are collected from incredibly high energy environments/parts of the reef, where the whole column of water around the coral is shifting constantly. Recreating that type of mass water movement is incredibly hard in reef aquariums.
Surge devices and wave boxes can sort of get you close though.
...

I sometimes think we attribute too much to the highest flow a coral undergoes in its natural environment.

Nobody would suggest that you leave your corals high and dry being blasted by the equivalent of high noon tropical sun, yet corals growing on a reef flat are exposed to this every day. I would suggest this applies to flow as well.

What percentage of corals grow outside of the reef crest? I've not done much diving, but most of the dives I did were in areas where the corals seemed to be exposed to a lot of laminar flow.

I like Thales approach. If you give a coral varying flow conditions, at least some of that will be optimum.

 

[C. Eymann]

I sometimes think we attribute too much to the highest flow a coral undergoes in its natural environment.

Nobody would suggest that you leave your corals high and dry being blasted by the equivalent of high noon tropical sun, yet corals growing on a reef flat are exposed to this every day. I would suggest this applies to flow as well.

What percentage of corals grow outside of the reef crest? I've not done much diving, but most of the dives I did were in areas where the corals seemed to be exposed to a lot of laminar flow.

I like Thales approach. If you give a coral varying flow conditions, at least some of that will be optimum.

You have some good points, Not all reef crests "tops" or "flats" are in <5ft water though, many reefs "crests" or edges are at 10-20 ft deep, sometimes deeper. I cant give percentages but of course lots of corals occur outside the reef crest, I'd say the most dense coral growth is on the outer reef face, not the crest. I too have experienced some strong laminar currents while diving on the lagoonal / fore reef areas, one lagoon side dive in particular by the biggest field of A. cervicornis I have ever seen, 20ft of water, and flow was very laminar/one direction and strong, but everytime I have dove on outer reef faces though, even 40-50ft down you still feel those waves, get launched forward for ~8sec, then a little pull back for 3-4sec, a slight pause (static) then get launched forward again.

I'm not saying you can't be successful with sps/acropora providing only constant laminar flow, but in my experience, they do much better with changing currents, both in direction and intensity.

Obviously, everyone does stuff differently, has different opinions and techniques in this hobby, all that really matters is if it works for them.

 

[fredk]

..., but everytime I have dove on outer reef faces though, even 40-50ft down you still feel those waves, get launched forward for ~8sec, then a little pull back for 3-4sec, a slight pause (static) then get launched forward again.
...

I must have had very calm weather for all my dives. I never really experienced much in the way of surges at all. My best dives were on Osprey Reef GBR, but even there, there was not really anything in the way of surges.

 

[HotRocks]

This may be the worst quality video I’ve ever seen but I have no idea what I’m doing. Please don’t be too harsh

Looks just fine to me! Corals look great BTW!

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I must have had very calm weather for all my dives. I never really experienced much in the way of surges at all. My best dives were on Osprey Reef GBR, but even there, there was not really anything in the way of surges.

I’ve snorkeled in can cun, st Lucia and Jamaica and while there wasn’t much if any Acropora, I do remember being surprised how calm the water was. There were a ton of giant gorgonians that were barely moving.

 

[Bastray]

I have a 4ft 88gal tank. I have 2 mp40’s, 1 mp10, and 2 gyre xf330’s.

The mp40’s are on the bottom back corners of the tank with the sole job of keeping the fish turds off the bottom of the tank. The xf330’s run 100% max, 80% min on LTC mode and the mp10 is a pump I had from my Nano tank and is just kind of in there randomly.

Nothing in my tank is getting blasted, but I have very strong flow upwards to 100x’s if all pumps are running max at the same time which is rare.

I don’t know if this makes my corals grow faster, but it does kick waste up in the tank to send it down the overflow which is my #1 concern. Any other positives from running that much flow is just icing on the cake.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I can answer that as soon as you tell me what a p.mutuki is

Its a protopalythoa (paly)

 

[C. Eymann]

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Its a protopalythoa (paly)

Yeah Ive had those for 15 years and hate them. I actually planned on removing the rock in the front this weekend but I had to have a little procedure done on my finger and don’t feel comfortable sticking my hand in the tank until it heals. I have a giant colony growing on the side that is part of my rockscape base foundation. I don’t know how I would take that one out.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I would have to agree with @Thales about random flow, especially with SPS.

Dana Riddle's 2016 presentation speaks on flow and it's importance removing the "boundary layer". I believe it's worthy to revisit in this talk, even though it covers much more.

 

[C. Eymann]

Yeah Ive had those for 15 years and hate them. I actually planned on removing the rock in the front this weekend but I had to have a little procedure done on my finger and don’t feel comfortable sticking my hand in the tank until it heals. I have a giant colony growing on the side that is part of my rockscape base foundation. I don’t know how I would take that one out.

While precautions should be taken with all coral, studies have shown P. mutuki to be a species that contains only trace amounts of palytoxin.

Just FYI.


Too each their own on the flow thing, I have been enjoying this conversation about it, so many different successes with varying degrees of in- tank flow methodology, but all seem to be successful.

Great topic and many excellent points have been made on both sides of the fence.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

While precautions should be taken with all coral, studies have shown P. mutuki to be a species that contains only trace amounts of palytoxin.

Just FYI.


Too each their own on the flow thing, I have been enjoying this conversation about it, so many different successes with varying degrees of in- tank flow methodology, but all seem to be successful.

Great topic and many excellent points have been made on both sides of the fence.

Thanks. That’s good to know

 

[C. Eymann]

Thanks. That’s good to know

No worries, and I hope you know, aside from the palytoxin note, other comment was made in jest.
* cheers