powerheads on 1 hour cycle?

[Snakebyt]

would there be any benefit of having powerheads on 1 hour alternating cycles? like the one of the left on for an hour, when it goes off the one on the right will come on for an hour, then back to left. ect.

Would there be any benefit in doing this ?

[mille239]

The benefit would be more random flow throughout your tank, but the downside is it is tough on the pumps to be cycling on and off like that.

[Shane Hoffman]

yes it will it will shorten the life of your powerheads. It is negligble though. In five years each will have run for 2 an a half years. So they will have 2 and a half years of wear on them as opposed to 5. You may ask how will this shorten the life if they are used half as much. The constant on off on off is harder on the moving parts...drive shaft, impellar, as far as the motor that is unclear. It really is a toss up. Alot of people get all paranoid and think their pumps/powerheads will need to be replaced every 6 months if they cycle them. This applies more to large workhorse pumps...think iwaki........

It would create more random flow. IMO overall total flow is more important than random flow. If you want to create random flow like that you need to buy twice as many pumps so that you always have the desired overall flow. If your refering to your 40 gal breeder one powerhead may be enough so two is good to use for alternating. You may find you need 2 powerheads to succsesfully create enough flow (more so cover all dead spots) for some lps and sps...if this is the case to do your random flow plan you wil need 3 or 4 pumps. I would do only 3. Leave one on constantly then have the other 2 alternate. Or put 2 pumps on each side and switch from one pair to the other. Then you will always have both sides covered. Personally I think random flow is over rated unless you go all out with true wave boxes....and there is even some controversy there. In the end the most important thing is to create enough flow to keep the corals you choose to keep and try to minimize dead spots. Even with the power heads in the same spot all day flow is more random than most people realize......

[sedor]

I think your better off get a controller like the reefkeeper that can control your pumps and create wavemaking options.

[cody6766]

If you use 3 or so, rather than one or 2, you can aim them so that their paths cross and create turbulence in the water. It's not a wave effect, but the coral are jostled about at fairly random intervals. To add to this you could put a few hydor flows on a couple MJ1200s and get some randomness going on.