Water turnover in a SPS tank

[Cabj1970]

How much flow is needed for a SPS tank

 

[Amphiprion]

There's a fairly wide range of options out there. With less flow, placement and positioning of powerheads (and corals) becomes more critical. In that respect, you can get by with less by maximizing what you have. Or, you can have quite a bit of water motion and not have to worry as much about placement. I went for the latter, even though I still slightly obsess over positioning (I just don't worry as much) as a throwback to when I had to. It doesn't really do as much good to try to quantify the flow rate, since there are tons of other variables involved (like the number of powerheads and their position). I would say that when you have corals receiving at least a burst here and there, along with reasonably good growth without recession (assuming the recession issues aren't associated with something else), then you've accomplished what you are looking for. Again, I hate to quantify it, but I've seen successful systems anywhere from 20 (usually on larger tanks) to 200+ volumes/hour.

 

[ReefTECK]

I think many average rates if you look around at many TOTM and user's equipment are between 40-80x turn over for display volume. This is a pretty arbitrary measurement, but it will usually get the job done.

Other variables include pump type, the type of stream they produce, displacement, placement, and more.

 

[Amphiprion]

Oops, meant to include that (I'm glad everybody catches this stuff). I'll agree that those values are usually the average.