To seio or not to seio?

[stewie24]

Hi PA gang.
Just had a few quick questions, and since I'll be ordering from you guys I figured i'd post here to seek the answers I'm looking for.
I need more flow in my 55 gallon tank. I have a mag 9.5 for my return, but the way I have it plumbed its just blasting a rock (problem with the supposed 1200 gph overflows not keeping up).
I have a mj 600 and another ~180 gph pump in my tank for other circulation.
I am going to be unloading most of my softies which will leave me with candy cane, a few shrooms, and a sps coral.
I'm going to be ordering a 40 pack of lps frags from a sponsor on here.
I've heard alot of mixed reviews about the seio powerheads.
Some people love them, some people hate them because of restarting failures.
So my questions are this:
1. How reliable are these? Have they made any changes in these to help the restarting issue?
2. What would be the ideal arrangement for these for a nice random flow for my 55? (i get flow from the mag 9.5 but its not really dispursed a whole lot. I was thinking of either getting 2 of the m620's and having one on the left side down low, and one of the right up high - or would i be better just to get something like the m820 or one of the m1100?
3. Do the seio pumps have a dispersed flow like the tunzes?
I don't want too much flow that it will be making the corals mad. I'm not sure what all will be included in the lps pack, but i'd be assuming it'd be candy canes, hammer, torch, frogspawn, brains, acans, etc.
I want to serve 2 purposes with the new powerhead/heads. To get better flow, and to attempt to keep the crap off the sandbed. That brings me to another question: Would 2 m620's, 1 m820 or 1 m1100 be too much for the sandbed and blow it all over the place (using southdown)?
What do you guys think i should do to achieve my purpose?
Btw, tunzes are out because of the price.
Thanks
Stewie

 

[eclecticvibe]

Hi Stewie,

I'll take a crack at these...


1.) There are some restarting issues. I don't know that anything has been done to address these yet. I wouldn't reccomend running them on a wavemaker, but they should be fine for normal use.

2.) Each tank is different and aquascaping plays a big role in pump placement. One on each side is a good idea. I like to place my pumps blowing against each other sometimes. As the flow collides, it seems you get more random flow.

3.) Though the flow pattern of the Seio's isn't quite as wide as the Tunze's in my estimation, it is wider than say a maxi-jet. It's more of a genlte flow than point of source current. It's hard to say if it will blow your sandbed around. Southdown is very light, but it tends to stay in place better once colonized with bacteria and such. Since you're doing mostly LPS in a 55g, I think I'd reccomend 2 x 620's, though the other combination would likely work too. I just worry a bit about the sand blowing. HTH

 

[stewie24]

Thanks Jay.
I think i'm actually going to go with 1 620 and 1 820 (figure i can always throttle it down). I'll be ordering once the 620's come in stock.
Any chance you'd know how long that might be?
Thanks
Stewie

 

[eclecticvibe]

We're thinking those are going to be here later this week.

 

[stewie24]

K. Thanks for the update. I'll be placing another order with you guys.
(probably a 620, an 820, and 2 reflectors for my MH lights).
One other question:
Any idea when you guys will have the salifert calc and mag test in? I've been needing those, so I might just wait till everything is in stock to save on shipping if its not going to be months before you get them in.
Thanks Jay.

Stewie

 

[eclecticvibe]

Those salifert tests have been very hard to come by. We hope to have some soon rather than later, but I can't make any promises as to time right now.