Let's Talk About Water Movement in an SPS Tank.

[Zigzag Man]

Wow, what a great idea for a thread... water movement is probably one of the most important aspects of having a healthy reef next to lighting.

It'll probably be easiest to explain my setup by showing a picture of it first.

I have 4 MJ-1200s, 2 Seio 820s, and a split return that pushes about 1000gph or so off a Mag 18.
Like was mentioned by other members, everything banks off the glass except for one of my powerheads which points at a downward angle to break up the flow and keep my frogspawn and hammer from getting blasted.
I also run everything up high, and have my rockwork relatively low, so that there's hardly any obstruction of the water flow (at least at the moment). I get nice eddies and currents throughout the tank running it this way, and all polyps on my SPS are moving from top to bottom.
The fish love it... don't have any problems with them trying to hide or avoid the currents.

Someone was asking how to temper the flow of a MJ-1200 in a previous post (not sure who ATM), but if you look at the furthest right MJ-1200, I have a homemade eductor on one.
Here's a side view shot:

Now it doesn't get near the flow gain of a mixing eductor (a 5:1 ratio), but it does get 'some' extra movement. It was relatively simple to build as well, and only has 3 main parts. a 3/4" coupling, a 1/2" coupling, and a small section of 1/2" pipe. None of it is glued, and the small piece of pipe is fit to the volute of the MJ-1200 with a piece of 1/2" ID tubing (press fit inside the 1/2" pipe). It sucks microbbles in from approximately 1" to 1-1/2" away, so that leads me to believe that it's actually working, just not as efficiently as a mixing eductor on a high-pressure pump would. To get to the point, rather than a high-velocity blast coming out of the eductor, it's more of a gentle narrowly focused beam of water, which doesn't fan out as much as a powerhead without the eductor.
I'm still in the observation stages, but am about to construct another for the MJ-1200 that doesn't have the flow director on it... at least it was cheap to build, about 50 cents for the two couplings, and figure in some extra for 1/2" pipe and tubing if you don't have any laying around.

So far I've been very happy with the flow in my tank, detritus stays in the water column for the most part, and the SPS are all growing like crazy. Plus, the SPS are getting thicker branches and plates, which leads me to believe that I'm getting the adequate amount of flow.

OK... the novel's done...

 

[herbert4]

nice idea zigzag,

Sorry I have been away for a few days, thanks for the above posts about flow. My concern is really where to drill the last few holes to give the best possible chances of good flow. After all that is done then I can actually put water in and try your suggestions.

SO do the spots I indicated in my origional post seem like good spots for the remaining holes to be drilled?

Thanks

:bum: :smokin:

 

[yellowtruck75]

The next big project for my 125 is a nice closed loop. So far I have 3, 802's in my tank spread out across the back and a closed loop which is run from a Mag 7 into a SCWD which I am not happy with at all. I am saving my money for my Ocean Motion 4 way with a Sequence Dart to power it. How does that sound for my SPS dominated tank? I might keep the SCWD closed loop to run behind the rock.

 

[yellowtruck75]

Would this be too much flow with 3 clams and a few LPS in my tank?

 

[AlgaeMan]

I just added a Tunze 6200 and was very impressed with the results. My tank is 6' and I had to turn the thing down to 30% and set on/off every 10 seconds. I was using two 6000's, but the corals have grown a good bit and there were more and more dead spots. So now I'm using a 6000 on one side and 6200 on the other.

 

[TurboRook]

Would this be too much flow with 3 clams and a few LPS in my tank?

I think this would be great. With the Dart and Oceans Motion, I would set it up so that flow was coming through at least 2 outlets at all times, though. It would probably be too much flow having all 2000gph+ coming out of just 1 outlet, even for a few seconds at a time.

 

[birdman204]

I hope this isn't too off topic, but for you folks with tunze streams and/or 20X or 30X flows, do your fish do ok? Can you keep fish like tangs, perculas or butterflys with those high flows?

My fish love it. I am running 2 tunze streams on a multi controller (1850 GPH each), and my mag 12 return from the sump on a scwd in a 90 G tank. I've been able to keep 4 squamapinnis in the tank with 7 other fisg... They rarely fight, I believe part of that is due to the heavy constantly switching flow. My female perc body surfs in them.... she swims as hard as she can into the stream, and then darts out and coasts another 14 - 20 inches with out paddling. She does this quite often, as though she is enjoying it. The yellow tang, fine (providing a good diet) , 3 chromis , a four line wrasse, and a black cap basslet all really seem to APPRECIATE the heavy flow.

 

[RGibson]

How much time do each of the tunze streams run?

 

[mathman]

Is there some neat trick to "spread" the flow out of 3/4" elbow? I have strong movement from my closed loop, but I would like it to be a wider projection of water. I tried a 1" elbow, but it is still a narrow jet of water, just a 1/4" wider.

 

[reef10]

I have heard the boiling the fitting will make it soft enough to shape. People have used pliers to open it up and form into a nozzle. I have made a u tube for an over flow using this method but never a nozzle. I was using white pvc.

 

[birdman204]

How much time do each of the tunze streams run?

All day and all night. they switch about every 90 seconds, and run at 50% power at night, and pulse back and forth between 50% and 100% when the halides are on.

 

[RGibson]

Thank you-birdman 204

 

[birdman204]

I have a question.
I need help planning the water movement in a 600 gallon tank, Tank - 7x4x3
Most likely all the bells and whistles... It needs to be somewhat automated. I will be running a geosapper device on the tank for main feeding with occasional supplemental feeding. Most likely 2 skimmers. A CA reactor. A chiller. for the most part , I believe I will be running a bare sump, and if room permits, a spare holding vessel of 20-80G or so for LR.
But I am stumped as far as water movement, I will use tunze streams, but I'd like to get away with 2 instead of 4 or 8 for asthetic purposes.... What are my options here for a high flow environment. Any suggestions would be welcome.

 

[herbert4]

birdman,
Have you seen the OceansMotions they have an excellent wave maker with either 4 outlets (4way) or 8 outlets (8way)?

Thier web address is oceansmotions.com
These offer great amounts of flow depending on your pumps.
They also have excellent customer service!

there is a thread on here, wavemaker

Good luck

 

[birdman204]

Thanks Herbert, I'm sold

 

[coralite]

I spent a while this summer analyzing flowrates within a respirometry chamber. The chamber is equipped with a volumetric flowmeter. To calibrate the volumetric readout with linear flowspeeds within the chamber, I videotaped the velocity of hydrated artemia cysts with a digital camera,with a scale bar in the frame, and then I simply traced and timed the path of the cysts in slow motion. Artemia cysts are preferable to flake food as they are neutrally buyoant, will feed your corals and it wont foul your tank like flake food. If anyone is interested in trying it out, I would say 10-20cm/s is about right for a stoney coral tank and above that is a really high flow. It is important to make measurements near the corals and reef structure in general cause flow is going to vary quite a bit in the tank and a coral doesnt care if there's 40cm/s coming out of the pump if the flow around it is 5/cm/s. If a large branchy coral has 5/cm/s around it, then the flow will be even less between its branches.

 

[prop-frags]

I just added a Tunze 6200 and was very impressed with the results. My tank is 6' and I had to turn the thing down to 30% and set on/off every 10 seconds. I was using two 6000's, but the corals have grown a good bit and there were more and more dead spots. So now I'm using a 6000 on one side and 6200 on the other.

Algaeman, I've got a 6' AGA 125 RR tank:

It's a bit hard to see in this pic, but I've got 6 returns plumbed. 2 returns are closed loop, and the other four are from two return pumps in the sump. I've gotten rid of most of my softies, and am feeling more confident now about ramping up on SPS. I feel like I've got good flow across my rocks, but am thinking about adding a Tunze Stream for some flow across the front. With your experience using the 6000, would you suspect that would be the right model for me? My (somewhat outdated) plumbing diagram is in my gallery.

 

[prop-frags]

Let me ask you guys. Here's my plumbing diagram:

My original design idea was to prevent the need for any powerheads in the tank, and now I want to jack up the flow a big more. What would you advise? Can I do it with the plumbing that I have? Add Oceanmotions or Seaswirls? Add Tunze Stream?

 

[trmills]

Mike,

IMO, pipe size to and from the tank should be either a minimum of 1" or at least one size larger than your bulkheads, especially on any returns. That will help maximize flow by minimizing friction losses. Reduce them at the pumps and bulkheads. If this tank is not set up yet, I would consider utilizing 1-1/4" bulkheads for every hole. Much better to have excess capacity and not need it than limited capacity and need it.

Use check valves that are larger than the pipe it is installed on (i.e. 1-1/4" or 1-1/2" on 1" pipe). I have been doing that for over 8 years. Once a month I shut off my pumps for an hour and check my sump level. I have never had leakage using this method. I have them mounted vertically and horizontally.

BTW, your tank size of 72"x18"x24" is 134.6 Gallons like mine. HTH. :wavehand:

 

[Bugger]

I would just like to point out the reason why you need so much current. Food particles such as bateria plankton and other organic stuff in your tank become more readily avaible when you get things flowing.