Water Movement Options

[wastememphis]

Hello,

I have a 34gallon Solana tank which I'm setting up for some SH's when I get back home in April. I have been thinking alot on what to use for water movement, but I still want to keep corals in the tank. I was actually thinking of using a Vortech 20, which I know sounds like too much but you can dial it down and the motor is outside the tank, which will help alot with cooling (hopefully).

What are other people using for powerheads in their tank? I'd much rather have one pump which you can control, rather than two weaker pumps on a timer or something. I'm looking for ideas though, FTS pictures would help... trying to keep a low profile look aswell. Thanks!

[pledosophy]

I have a closed loop that returns through spraybars behind the rocks, and then a koralia nano, as well as a sump return.

I'm not sure about the vortech, never used one myself, supposed to have a wide flow. You can dial the 20 down to 300 gph if I'm not mistaken. I'd do it.

Here is a FTS from a few months ago. If you look on the upper back corners you can see a bit of the purple pipe from the CL return.

[wastememphis]

Nice, what size tank is that? Whats the GPH for the koralia/close loop?

[pledosophy]

It's a 34g tank including that little filtration chamber in the back (which I promptly drilled to add a sump)30g's of actual tank space. After the Koralia, the CL and the sump return, I'm pushing 50x an hour at about 1500 gph. I did just get another nano koralia to, kinda have this one spot.

I'm obsessed with flow for seahorses. Have been playing with it for many years.

My closed loop return is through spraybars which are surrounded by rock. They return on each side of the tank. I can control them with ball valves to make all the flow come out of one side, or another, or a mixture. I don't run it 24/7, more like 8 hours a day or so. I try to remember to leave all the flow coming out of one side or the other for at least an hour everyday, but I often forget.

The Koralia Nano is on 24/7. You can see it's kinda pointed right at the gorg in the pic. Since the pic was taken I have moved stuff a bit and moved the gorg closer to the flow. Was having a problem shedding the gorg mucus. The gorg is where the most flow in the tank is, it is also where the seahorse spends 80% of her time, and where she sleeps.

The second Koralia I plan to run on a timer. Maybe an hour or two a day broken up into incriments of time. Was thinking 15 minutes every four hours. Haven't played with it to much yet. There is just no flow hitting the left side of the tank and I am getting some detritus build up. I blow it off everyday with the turkey baster, but this will be better.

If I end up running both the Koralia's, the CL, and the return at the same time it will put me in the 58x turn over range.

I know it sounds insane to keep horses that high, and well it kinda is. It's not something you can do with one pump, you really have to work hard at it, but I think I'm proving it can be done.

The Vortechs are supposed to have a very wide flow that creates an undertow on the sand, would be perfect for horses IMO based on what I have read. Never used on though. I think you should be the guinea pig, if it goes great, I might just pick up a vortech myself. Again, I'm obsessed with flow. Let's not talk about my reef tank.

[wastememphis]

Thanks alot for your explinations!

In order to have a tank (non planted) with horses and corals you would need to have some sort of "magic" water movement that will satisfy everything. I like the idea of your spray... I'm wondering if I can make one with the standard return pump of the solana to go behind the rocks and then just have the V20 on one side. I like the idea of a pump surging rather than turning on and off... are there any ther pumps than expensive tunze nano's and the vortech that can do this?

I could always just buy the vortech and set up a frag tank or re-set up my reef tnak if it's too much flow for the nano tank. I like the 2x V40 idea for a reef tank, since they can be controlled together

[pledosophy]

I tried lower flow through the spraybar but it was so minimal IME that it did not move the detritus. My closed loop now pushes just over 900 gph and it is almost not enough. I have thought about going with a bigger pump a few times.

Given my spraybars have abot 40 holes in them, so all of that flow divided up is not so much.

IME the spraybars under and behind the rocks do not do much for the detritus that settles on the rocks.

I actually planned out where the corals were going to go that needed flow, and planned my aquascaping and spraybars around that.

Then the return from the sump and the powerhead make up for the difference.

I know of no pumps that do the surging. You can run your return through a SCWD, or use a Wavy Sea or Sea Swirl to help out a bit, BUT, if the fow is to random the seahorses will not thrive. IME/IMO they need dedicated areas for rest away from the flow. I have 4 of these in my tank and the seahorse can be found there several times through out the day. She still spends most of the time in the flow though. Not sure what to make of it to be honest.

I ordered a wavemaking device for my reef last week. Looking to alternate the flow from a Koralia 3 and a Koralia 4 on 15 second intervals. Already have a SCWD in that tank as well, getting a Sea Swirl soon too. Between all of it the flow for the reef should be good. Alternating "random" flow for reefs is great, but not for seahorses IMHO.

HTH