Nero 3 schedule for waterbox cube 20 advice

[Stoichiometry]

Hi, I've gone through every thread I could for nero 3 scheduling advice for a mixed reef waterbox cube 20 and haven't quite got the answers I needed so any advice is much appreciated. I've placed my nero 3 at about 2/3 height on left side of tank in the middle of the glass. Tank is a mixed reef. Currently has only a couple Montipora Digitata and one Stylophora for branching sps frags. Other corals are one duncan, one hammer, clove polyps, one leptoseris, one cyphastrea. All pretty new frags. Looking to add lps, easier sps, and a couple soft corals in the future. Have one mature clown fish and one fire fish currently. Adding photo of my tank

Current nero schedule just kind of winging it:

8:30am-8:30pm: Random 15%-30% high variance
8:31pm-8:29am: Constant speed 15%

 

[Makara23]

I would add 10-15min of pulsing in there (med to high intensity) to blow off any detritus that settles on corals or rocks.

 

[BAMatter]

Might not be a huge help, but I have a Biocube 32 and am running 2 of the Nero 3’s. 1 is on the side of the tank the other on the back wall opposite the return nozzle. Here are my schedules.

 

[mjw011689]

The answer to your question is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We could all give you our opinions on what the best flow is, but they’ll be just that… opinions. The best flow is what you can see makes your corals happy and ultimately prevents dead spots so crud doesn’t settle.

this can be troublesome on a smaller mixed reef, because your lps and softies don’t necessarily like the stronger flow of the sps stuff, so keeping them all happy in a small tank can be tough (doable, just more difficult).

personally, i run my Nero’s on high variance random percentage between 35-70% on one of them, and 20-45% on the other in my 40 breeder. I’ll call it a mixed reef but there’s mostly euphilia type corals in there, which is why the one pump has a lower percentage. Any sps I get will have to go on the other side of the tank where the stronger flow is.

i don’t mess with having different patterns throughout the day. Sure, i could do some of the pulsing patterns and I’m sure it might help kick up some more debris, but the reason I don’t is because I’ve heard lots of issues from people who have their Nero’s on and on/off type pattern. They seem to jam off occasionally, and i decided I’d combat that by just having them never slow down to the point of turning off.

 

[Stoichiometry]

The answer to your question is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We could all give you our opinions on what the best flow is, but they’ll be just that… opinions. The best flow is what you can see makes your corals happy and ultimately prevents dead spots so crud doesn’t settle.

this can be troublesome on a smaller mixed reef, because your lps and softies don’t necessarily like the stronger flow of the sps stuff, so keeping them all happy in a small tank can be tough (doable, just more difficult).

personally, i run my Nero’s on high variance random percentage between 35-70% on one of them, and 20-45% on the other in my 40 breeder. I’ll call it a mixed reef but there’s mostly euphilia type corals in there, which is why the one pump has a lower percentage. Any sps I get will have to go on the other side of the tank where the stronger flow is.

i don’t mess with having different patterns throughout the day. Sure, i could do some of the pulsing patterns and I’m sure it might help kick up some more debris, but the reason I don’t is because I’ve heard lots of issues from people who have their Nero’s on and on/off type pattern. They seem to jam off occasionally, and i decided I’d combat that by just having them never slow down to the point of turning off.

Thank you. That makes sense. Feel like maybe I should move my stick sps to the top of my scape and kinda direct blast them and let everything else get the ricochet flow. They are kind of in the side corners in the middle right now. How bad is it to move montipora digitata that have been glued directly to rock within the past week? My overall lighting isn't that strong right now to avoid algea and get a bunch of coral so I can eventually start ramping up the lighting so the monti being in the high par range is probly not going to be blasting it with too much light

 

[BAMatter]

Thank you. That makes sense. Feel like maybe I should move my stick sps to the top of my scape and kinda direct blast them and let everything else get the ricochet flow. They are kind of in the side corners in the middle right now. How bad is it to move montipora digitata that have been glued directly to rock within the past week? My overall lighting isn't that strong right now to avoid algea and get a bunch of coral so I can eventually start ramping up the lighting so the monti being in the high par range is probly not going to be blasting it with too much light

You’ll want your SPS up high. Id personally point that Nero 3 towards the surface of the water. That will help get some good random fast flow up higher for the SPS, and will be slower towards the middle and bottom for everything else.

I wouldn’t worry about moving the digi, they are pretty hardy when it comes to SPS. Just let it stay where you put it for a while and let it be. A PAR meter would be ideal to help dial your lights in.