Waterflow questions?

[Monkey55]

have a oceanic biocube 29. I am concerned about flow, because it seems that there is a lot of poop on my sand bed. I have:

12 - hermit crabs (blue)
3 - large mexican astrea snails
2 - stallera astrea snails
3 - trochus snails
6 - nassarius snails

and this crew does not seem to keep up. I am getting 8 more nassarius snails and a fighting conch next week. I have a sapphire protein skimmer. So I know that enough oxygen is getting into the water.

What I am concerned with is that the pump that comes stock has a flow of 250 gph. Now I have looked around on the internet and some say it is too much and some say it is too little. Since I know that reef central people are the wisest aquarists in the world, I started this thread. I have been thinking of putting a larger return pump in, and splitting my outtake with a locline Y fitting. to disperse flow. I am thinking that a pump with 350 GPH would be good? (what do you think, my tank only realistically hold 23 Gallons of water plus sand and rock)

My questions are:

1. Considering I have a heavy bioload in my tank, and a lot of corals, how much flow do I really need? Should I just get more snails?

2. If I need more flow, what pump will fit in my third chamber?, that is common to find (i could get it from a local LFS)

3. If I should install a Y fitting and locline, what directions should I point the two outtakes in?

Thank you, I really appreciate the help everyone has been, you have made this hobby more enjoyable and stress free for me>

Cheers

 

[jmcmahon66]

I never considered the stock pump as too much, it is approx. 10x turnover. I put the Rio HF6 in my 29g biocube, and it is reasonable. I had to modify the overflow area from chamber 1 to chamber 2 to allow more water to flow. Many people who desire more flow add a tunze nano or koralia powerhead. HTH

 

[Monkey55]

what turnover should you have for a tank with fish, lps, stony corals, soft corals, and mushrooms.

15X?

 

[Rosseau]

this won't necessarily answer your question, however if you feel like reading it is interesting. Describes why we need flow, and how corals perform under various flow levels.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/9/aafeature2

 

[elmatth1]

Seems to me that most of the people i read who post on here with nano's put a second powerhead or closed loop in their display for more flow. I'll be downgrading my 75g to a 25ish gallon soon and that's probably what i'll do as well.

 

[kase]

if you are keep sps you should have more flow. JMO the more flow the better for SPS.

 

[Eskie]

I note you only have 2 chromis (other than CUC and pep) in the tank. That's really not much of a bio-load, especially if you're skimming and changing water consistently. I agree that more flow is helpful than the stock pump provides, but the issue of your dirty sand won't be solved by that alone. Are you overfeeding the tank and getting algae growth on the sand from that?

 

[Monkey55]

No, the main problem is algae associated with a new tank, and my snails put out a lot of poop. But I am getting rid of the chromis this weekend (Back to LFS), and getting two clowns and a firefish. I am also getting two more shrimps and 20 more snails, 5 more hermits, and 2 new corals this weekend. So I want this problem dealt with