water circulation question

[psycho1]

I have an under gravel (substrate) jet system in my tank powered by 2 pumps. One for one half of the tank, one for the other.

I have been considering putting the pumps on timer creating an "alternating current" effect, 12 hours on one system, then 12 on the other.

Are there any pros or cons to this?

Thanks

[thor32766]

well to start with alot of people use timers to do the wavemaker effect and love it. they usually run them in times quite a bit closer to together.

[outy]

dont do it with a undergravel filtration setup your going to starve your bacteria with no oxygen and cycle your tank CRASH!

[AZDesertRat]

Yep! Undergravel filters depend on the flow of oxygenated water to keep the bacteria alive. It does not take long without flow to disrupt the cycle and then you are headed for big trouble.
If you are wanting random flow add a Seio or two.

[psycho1]

It is not an undergravel filtration system. There is absolutely no filtration component to the system. It is basically just plumbing the output of your powerheads with PVC to where it runs under the substrate and then out small jets. Almost like a closed loop.

The purpose of the system is to create better flow with the tank and to hide and/or disguise your powerheads.

Mine are hidden by LR, LR ruble, and substrate. My pumps are hiden with in my rockwork. My system has 6 jets total (3 for each pump) and the intake of the pumps help create flow behind and within my LR.

I used them in my freshwater cichlid tanks for years. I decided to put it in my saltwater tank after reading that good circulation was very important. It also help me win a long going battle with cyano.

Here is a link:

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ug_jets.php (http://)

[reverendmaynard]

Well, one con would be that you are cutting the flow in half, since only one half is on at any one time. You might add 2 more powerheads with more traditional placement (top back corners, pointed towards the center front) and have them on the same timers, but opposite sides (lower left, upper right on at same time, etc.)

[psycho1]

When all the pumps (both jet systems, sump return, canister(for chemical)) are running at once I am roughly pushing about 2000gph, by alternating the jet pumps, I would have a continous turnover of about 1400gph, so I was thinking that should not be a problem.

I would rather run them both at the same time then have more powerheads to the tank.