Power Heads?

[hugecoltsfan]

I have a 65 gallon aquarium in the process of turning it into a reef tank. What is a good rule of thumb for a power head 150 gph or 1500gph? I am confused on what to get. I want to make sure I get enough water flow.

Thanks

[IslandCrow]

At a minimum, you generally want at least 10x your tank's volume in turnover, which would be 650gph. This depends on a lot of things, though, and many of us go much higher, especially for a reef tank. Also, you usually want water flow coming from at least two different directions, so I'd say you want to get two powerheads at a minimum (assuming you're not going to have another source of significant waterflow, like a closed loop). When it comes right down to it, many of us have started talking more in terms of specific powerheads. With the advent of propellar (like Koralias, Vortechs, etc.) becoming much more popular than impellar (like Maxijets) powerheads, the rules of thumb have pretty much been thrown out the window (many of us have closer to 40-50x turnover). Simply put, with one of the propellar type powerheads with a wide flow pattern, you generally want significantly more flow.

So, how aobut some suggestions. My experience is primarily with Hydor Koralia powerheads, which are not necessarily the best out there, but some of the most cost effective. For your tank, I'd suggest 2 Koralia 3s as a minimum for a reef tank. 2 Koralia 4s would probably be even better. Another cost effective solution are the Maxijet powerheads with the Sureflow modification. There are other companies that make these mod kits (along with some do-it-yourself instructions on the web), but that's the only one I can recall off the top of my head. I think I ended up putting a modded Maxijet 400 or 600 in my 46g tank. The 900s and 1200s were just too powerful for a tank that size, and would probably be too much for a 65g as well.

Other more expensive, but better quality options are Tunze and Vortech powerheads (and probably a few others). Hopefully someone with some experience on those can pipe in. I could give you some good guesses, but I have no personal experience.

[hugecoltsfan]

As of right now I have 2 Maxijets (400 & 600). I thought that would of been enough but I don't think it is moving the water like it should I was thinking about getting 2 900's and keep the 600 in there and put the 400 in the 32 gallon trash can with premade water for water changes. What do you guys think?

[Korrine]

Get a maxi jet 1200 and the mod for it :)


I have roughly 40x turn over in my tank today (changed my vortech again).

[Handofdume]

In my 65g i have two vortec mp 10's at about 70%. Before i bought them i had a koralia 1 and 3 and i would say the flow was a little low. My return pump is at 200 or so.

[sir_dudeguy]

Like said above, MINIMUM should be at leats 10x turnover rate. I personally never do anything less than 20 if doing corals.

That being said, stuff like maxijets and whatnot are not the greatest. Sure, if you add up all the gallons per hour from all of them and divide by how many gallons the tank holds, the numbers might show you're at 10x turnover, but you're more than likely still not gonna have adequate circulation with maxijets.

You want enough flow to get rid of any dead spots in the tank. Easy way to tell if you've got dead spots is take some flake food and throw it in there. If it lands relatively quickly and just settles there, you know you need more flow.

Another reason i dont like maxijets or any other powerhead with a "jet" type of flow is because where are you going to see a tiny concentrated jet of water in a real reef?

IMO stay away from those types of powerheads. Great for mixing saltwater, not so great for actually using in a tank.

I'm a big fan of what islandcrow said. I pretty much second everything he said.

I was thinking along the lines of at least 2 koralia 3's. That would give you a decent amount of flow. However, i tried 2 koralia 4's in my 40 breeder once (lol)...it was a bit overkill i will admit, but in a 65, that little bit more of room you have would be all the difference and that would give you plenty of flow. Or if you wanted to do 3 of the koralia 3's, that would work too probably.

Point being, you want a widespread flow thats as random as possible. Jet powerheads dont move nearly enough of the water

[Michael]

it depends on what corals you plan to keep, if just a few softies then a couple of k2s or equivalent will do, if your long term plans is for a full blown sps reef then a couple of tunze 6045s or even a wave maker is a good purchase, otherwise as island crow said.

[IslandCrow]

Michael makes a good point that your planned livestock make a big impact on how much flow you want. Even with soft corals, I like as much flow as they can stand just to avoid dead spots where detritus can collect, but not all corals can handle the same amount of flow.

Since you have the Maxijets already, you may want to consider just getting the Sureflow or Ecotech mods. I've never used the Ecotechs, but they appear to be pretty identical to the Sureflows which work pretty well. They can be a bit noisy at startup, and I'm not sure how energy/heat efficient they are compared to Tunze or Vortech (I'm pretty sure the Vortechs have them beat on heat), but otherwise I've never had a problem. I believe it's the same kit for both the MJ400 & 600. Personally, I think a modded MJ 1200 is overkill, but again, it depends on the specific tank. In my SPS dominated 46g, just one was far too much. My poor clownfish was swimming for her life. I think my wrasse kind of liked it, though. He'd let it blow him across the tank, then dart inbetween rocks to get back to the other side to do it all over again.

[hugecoltsfan]

Thanks to everyone who has answered. You have set me in the right direction. But I am sure I will be back with more questions.

[wooden_reefer]

I have a 65 gallon aquarium in the process of turning it into a reef tank. What is a good rule of thumb for a power head 150 gph or 1500gph? I am confused on what to get. I want to make sure I get enough water flow.

Thanks

Are you going to have two loops, one open and one closed?

If so, the flow of the open loop can be rather slow, for the closed loop rather high.

I go for open loop as slow as 3-5X, closed loop 10X or more.

If you only have one open loop, there is a compromise.