Help me decide on flow please!

[Caragol]

My latest tank will be a 29g standard 30x12x18 tank, simple softies. It will have mostly mushrooms including rics, some xenia, zoas and maybe a plate coral and some frogspawn. I don't want so much flow that everything is whipping around, but I'm used to sizing flow for SPS.

How much flow is too little flow? How much is too much for a mushroom dominated tank.

 

[Joe Pusdesris]

I think low flow is quite a lot better, especially for mushrooms. It is just difficult to get sufficient oxygen without it.

 

[organism]

I used to think low flow was the way to go for mushrooms, but the past few months I've been using pretty high flow in the tank and they all just kind of suction cup to the sand bed or to whatever rock they're on. You'll see mushrooms arrive on rocks with SPS sometimes, they adapt pretty well. Not sure my GPH but I have an MP10 on two notches over halfway in a 34 gallon solana.

 

[Caragol]

I agree Joe... with some of the suggestions out there the tank would look more like a blender full of confetti than a mushroom tank. I just didn't know 10x flow from the smallest Koralia Nano? Or?

 

[Caragol]

34 is pretty close in size to mine... I have to work on shelter for xenia as well and that's not going to pulse in too high flow, so Ill have to figure that out.

MP10 is 1500-1800GPH... so, that's high flow alright.

 

[organism]

MP10 is at 200-1500 GPH, guessing I keep mine at like 9-1000ish but with the broad flow it works really well. Before that I had a low flow mushroom tank that also looked great but was tiny and easier to keep clean, chances are whatever you pick it'll look good as long as the sand bed's not flying around the tank

 

[Caragol]

Thanks for the reply! I didn't realize that was adjustable. So you're doing about 30x flow then... Maybe I'll start with 15x with the larger Koralia nano, I can add another on the opposite side of the tank if I need more. I just don't want to error on the side of too much and have a useless pump.

 

[debincalif]

Totally not an answer to your question, but just have to say that I love your avatar pic!

 

[Joe Pusdesris]

Of all my tanks, the best one had absolutely no flow, just a skimmer sized 10x too big. On the other hand, my 2nd best tank had the most flow out of any I have had. 2 Koralia 3s on a 60 gallon. I am currently experimenting with another tank with zero flow...

I don't know about the new koralia, but in the old ones the koralia 1 has no noticeable output, even on a nano. So I wouldn't bother with the Koralia nano if I was you.