Flow question

[tonkadawg]

I've got a via aqua 18 gallon tank (bb, 20ish lbs LR) that uses only an aqua clear 30 for circulation. I replaced the filter 'internals' with a bag of carbon that I change monthly.

In the tank I have 2 H. erectus and various soft corals. I am starting to notice that the some of the corals just don't look as good as they should. I have a colt coral, a yellow finger leather and an orange finger sponge, all of which look like they have shrunk since I got them.

I am pretty sure that the shrinking corals has to do with the limited amount of flow in the tank, but I am concerned with the amount of flow for the seahorses.

Do I have enough flow as it is now, or can I add a little more with out adversly affecting the sea horses?

 

[tonkadawg]

anyone have any advice, one way or another as to if I should add a little more flow to help corals, but not affect the sea horses?

 

[pledosophy]

What brought you to the conclusion that it was the flow?

IME it is possible to keep seahorses and corals but in an 18g system it would be hard to seperate the flow enough not to bother the seahorses and still make it ideal for the corals.

The leather should be fine with the flow for a seahorse tank. The colt should be O.K., but in a higher flow area with more light. Is the sponge growing alagae? That is more of a water quality issue, but higher flow can solve the problem. More likely it is just acting like a sponge.

 

[Wink]

My colt coral does great in low flow - I do supplement iodine and target feed the colt with phyto 3 times a week.

 

[tonkadawg]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7005371#post7005371 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pledosophy
What brought you to the conclusion that it was the flow?

Well, I guess I came to the conclusion that flow was the culprit because the corals just don't look as good as they did. All of my params are stable - Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0, Phosphate .02 (hanna), 1.026 for sg reading. Tank has been running for approximately 3 years (just the last 3 months with sea horses).

I perform weekly 5 gallon water changes, feed the tank twice daily.

About the only thing that has changed in this tank is that I've reduced the flow to accomidate the seahorses.

I guess where I am really going with this is, if I do add more flow, how much more should I add? I don't want too much, so how much can a seahorse tolerate and still be happy?

 

[pledosophy]

What do you feed the corals directly?

I would not advise you try this, but my tank turns over 14+x an hour. Please don't take this out of context. I have 15' of PVC inside my system running a spray bar through the rocks, the return from my sump/fuge is split into 4. The seahorse can swim anywhere.

There is no magic number, but you need to make sure the flow is broken up enough, so there is nocurrent capable of hurting the seahorse. JMO.

 

[tonkadawg]

I use some cyclop-eze, and a mixture of brine, mysis, and krill that was thrown into the blender.

I do have a RIO 90 behind the rock work that I have turned off, would turning that on so it blows across the back of the rock work and around to the front be ok?

 

[pledosophy]

I think the 90 would be fine. That thing is just a tad stronger than an airpump.

I've found great succsess in feeding my corals with Reef Solution by EcoSystems. The corals in the prop tank are reproducing faster then ever, the color on everything looks better, my main tank is blossoming. I have tried many many products, and none have performed as well as the Reef Solution. You can order it as windowtothesea.com it is good stuff. I think the problems with your corals are the food your feeding them. JMO.

 

[tonkadawg]

Well I went ahead and fired the 90 up last night and while a detritus storm ensued right after powering up, it didn't seem to affect the horses at all. If anything, they seemed to like the added flow. So I will keep it running and see how that affects the rest of the tank.

As far as food, I am planning on culturing phytoplankton for my sps tank and will probably use that for the seahorse tank too. I've also been looking at getting some frozen rotifers, golden pearls and decapsulated brineshrimp eggs and probably cyclopeze to try out. That mixture would probably be beneficial to both tanks.

 

[pledosophy]

If you pour all of that into your tank your will be very succsessful with either cyano, or hair alagae.

 

[garvondavis14]

watch your 90 though, if you have the flow aimed straight at the rocks, a horse can get trapped in there...

 

[tonkadawg]

I've got the 90 angled down in the bottom corner, so the flow is bouncing off the starboard and then shooting across the back of the rock work.

So far having the PH turned on has given more flow for the corals but doesn't seem like too much for the sea horses. They actually seem to like it - they are swimming back and forth in the lower portion of the tank where the new flow is.

 

[ECSSR4103]

we have a colt in with the seahorses and it looked bad and i had to change the lighting because of tank is a tall ahd it was not getting enought light. it is doing very well and is spliting in to twofor us. but i also put a powersweep powerhead in the tank and startedputting vita-chem in. it might be a combo of all don't know but did everything was told to and it is doing very well.