How much flow is too much?

noobtothereef

New member
Currently i have a 120 48x24x24 with 1500gph of return flow and a reeflo dart on a closed loop with about 3000gph, i am mainly going to be keeping sps, i was thinking of adding more flow, one powerhead to each side, i was thinking 2 koralia evo 1400's as i can run them on my wavemaker feature on my reefkeeper....what do u guys think?
 
well first of all with a sps tank DONT count the return pump as FLOW, cause with head heights crud/calcium build-up and pipe slime the flow from a return can slow down to a trickle pretty fast, and your return pump should be just that a RETURN pump and just be used for a means to transfer water to and from your sump........

.....so just count power heads closed loops, waveboxes etc, so as of right now you have a 120 with 300gph which is 25 times turnover in your tank, and i have a 37gallon with a vortech Mp40 that runs at about 85-90%, so i have 75 times my tank turnover.......

.......IME almost all sps can be acclimated to high flow, and actually they will be much healthier as every time they stress and release a slimy mucus the flow helps the coral shed it faster, and keep it in the water colum, and eventually the filter sock and skimmer, and from sticking to another coral
 
i have a 200gal and i have 4 MP40w running at 100% and i dont think i have enough, im looking at getting 4 Tunze 6105's or 6205's if i can find the $$$

(my return is 6000lph)
 
running 3 mp40's, koralia magnum 8, 2x1600gph powerheads, 1 modded k3(about 1400-1600gph), tunze 6065, and a 6012 wavebox on my 210 for around 90x turnover(not including the wavebox). 60g frag tank is running around 7700gph of flow for almost 130x turnover. you should be fine on yours =)
 
7 Korilla 8's and 5 korrila 4s plus 2 1800 gph return pumpes somewhere around 30K flow I think. only about 40x turnover.
 
I just added another pump to my system, Iwaki 100 to the already lue Line 70HD and damm its like a tornado in the tank. I could takeout all the tunze power heads (4) and still be fine

I think I saw one of my SPS with a smile:)
 
Well a distinction should be made between flow and directed flow. I've had SPS stn from too much directed flow. However, flow, ramped up proportionally, is not harmful.

I've seen larger SPS tanks where the Acros actually grow around a Tunze stream and there is a channel straight through the corals.
 
i have 2 Koralia 4's, 1 koralia evo 750, 1 koralia 3, 1 seio 850, and a mag 7 return pump and am about to upgrade to a mag 9.5 on my 75 and my acros had better polyp extension and color after adding the last few.

thats a 70x turnover rate after head loss on return pump
 
I am at about 47X turnover, and things seem pretty happy. But, I am definitely thinking about increasing to the +/- 60X range.
 
with some of you guys setups, do you have fish in them? i would think an mp40 in a 37gal at 90% would blow the fish uncontrollably....
 
Last edited:
with some of you guys setups, do you have fish in them? i would think an mp40 in a 37gal at 90% would blow the fish uncontrollably....

I have 2 mp 40's on a 90 cranked all the way. The fish love them the swim right at them just for fun. These fish are from the ocean and the flow we are creating is nothing in compairison.
 
Back
Top