water circulation

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blaze422

Premium Member
How do ya'll determine if you have enough circulation? It was suggested to me to add a Tunze even though my tank inhabitants look fine.
I only' have the tank returns (2 on each side). on my 180.
I'm thinking adding a power head on each end might improve my softies and LPS's..but wondered if everyone just flies by the seat of their pants.
 
Just my personal preference. I have one and love the adjustability. Another big plus in my opinion is that the heat of the motor is dissipated externally vs being absorbed by the tank water. I know others have recently purchased the Tunze units and have heard good things about those as well. I would venture to say that the returns alone on a 180 aren't providing adequate flow rates and there are most likely quite a few areas that are receiving little to no flow.
 
Thanks, but the main point of this thread is on what basis do you determine if you have enough circulation..not what type of pump to use.
 
In that case that coral are you keeping and what is your return pump? If you are only housing softies then flow is not as important. Lps needs a bit more and most sps need high flow.
With low flow you may encounter alge issues.
 
I guess the main reason is most people are keeping a live reef and trying to emulate a Natural reef.
Once again it mostly depends on what you are trying to house.
 
Best way to explain it is what kind of coral do you have or want to keep. Then research what part of the ocean it is found (Reef crest, lagoon,shallow, deep...) if most of the coral is in low flow then get smaller pumps or get a controllable one and turn it down. If high flow coral(sps) get more pumps that are high gph or if controllable turn the up high.
Hope this makes sense to you
 
@blaze422 wrote:
ok...not to be arguementative...how do you suggest evaluating circulation? said:
Just look at the coral. They will give you signs if they are happy or not. In a tank your size I would have two vortech mp40.
That's what I had in my old 120.
Click to expand...
 
Too little flow algae will more likely take over. Too much flow and most of your coral will not open up.
 
But we really need a lot more info. Fish,coral, how much rock and sand. How is the rock placed in the tank.
Pics of your setup would help people give you suggestions also
 
No one really answered your question. 20x size for softies and 40+x for hard corals. 180x20= 3600 GPH min softies. Sps 40x180= 7200 GPH minium. Your choice on how you wanna do that. IMO 2x mp40 or 2xMP60 would be great. Pick what fits your budget. 10 years ago we were good running 20$ maxijets.
 
Miller..thanks. Holy cow..I checked out your pic of your tank from 8 years ago. Looks like a reef central tank of the month!
Funny comment about the maxi jets..prior to my office fire, my 9 year old tank was running 6 maxijets [smilie=wink.gif]

With my new setup, the only circulation is those 4 returns. My tank is mixed with a little of everything with the only SPS being simple stuff like varieties of birds nest, Monti's etc . Everything looks happy, but its only been back up 3 months.

Before i throw some pumps into the mix (pun intended) and checked with a LFS who would obviously recommend /sell me some, I figured I would take advantage of the brain trust here.
 
@mmiller40 wrote:
No one really answered your question. 20x size for softies and 40+x for hard corals. 180x20= 3600 GPH min softies. Sps 40x180= 7200 GPH minium. Your choice on how you wanna do that. IMO 2x mp40 or 2xMP60 would be great. Pick what fits your budget. 10 years ago we were good running 20$ maxijets. said:
That is what I was trying to say. Hahahaha
Good luck
Click to expand...
 
@blaze422 wrote:
Miller..thanks. Holy cow..I checked out your pic of your tank from 8 years ago. Looks like a reef central tank of the month! Funny comment about the maxi jets..prior to my office fire said:
Thank you!
That tank was actually run on 4 maxijets. Did eventually put a couple seios on it before I upgraded.
Click to expand...
 
I pulled the trigger and bought one mp40...I can't justify $900 for 2 pumps.
Ok..next issue...if I have a rectangular 180 and I place on one side the mp40...do I want to pick the side closest to sps's for the pump and the softies at the far end? The answer seems obvious however I'm not sure how the mp40 creates circulation currents so again....I defer to the wisdom of the board,
 
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