Night time reef flow?

[Novice101]

Is it ok to leave my power heads on all night or will the fish and coral get stressed I have a 110 gallon with 2 wp40s and a regular power head should I turn them off or what because the night feature on these are mainly useless

 

[Perth_reefer]

You need to keep flow in your tank at all times to maintain the dissolved oxygen levels in your water, otherwise the existing oxygen will start to get used up and your fish will struggle to breathe.
I'm not sure about WP40 settings but I run MP40s at 15% on Lagoon Mode during the night so it is calm but there is still enough surface agitation there to enable oxygen to be dissolved into the water.

 

[bundybear1981]

The ocean doesn't stop flowing at night As Kenpau said it is also to keep oxygen levels up too. I removed the light sensor from my powerhead and I don't drop flow rates.

 

[conjuay]

The ocean doesn't stop flowing at night As Kenpau said it is also to keep oxygen levels up too. I removed the light sensor from my powerhead and I don't drop flow rates.

The ocean doesn't stop flowing but wave action certainly decreases. Waves are primarily wind driven. The sun during the day causes an onshore flow (usually). Once the sun sets this wave action deminishes. So after lights out there should be a lessening of strong flow.

 

[HefeWeizen]

I run mine the same 24/7.

 

[davocean]

There is no need to lessen flow at night and it is actually more beneficial to keep it constant

 

[Ou8me2]

I do not lessen the flow in the sense of reducing it. I do however like to change the flow mode to simulate different conditions at night so I'm not using the same mode all the time.

 

[FullBoreReefer]

You need to keep flow in your tank at all times to maintain the dissolved oxygen levels in your water, otherwise the existing oxygen will start to get used up and your fish will struggle to breathe.
I'm not sure about WP40 settings but I run MP40s at 15% on Lagoon Mode during the night so it is calm but there is still enough surface agitation there to enable oxygen to be dissolved into the water.

15% seems really low. How many mp40s? I have 2 in a 36x24x25 tank and during the day they are in reef crest, 70%. During the night they are lagoon, 70%.

 

[firefly73]

i was watching a doco on the barrier reef the other day and it was stated that corals add to their mass at night as well as feed (knew that bit) based on that i no longer drop my flow much at night anymore. more water means more ions to grow with. also suspends any micro foods i put in the tank. as other stated o2 is also being used and c02 builds up. i have a theory that the carbonic acid build up (lowering ph) would also affect corals from easily building new material.

Further to this i also dose alk over night in 20 smaller doses to help stabilise my ph and remove alk swings (around 1dkh per day)

 

[pyithar]

same as daytime flow.