Flow in a 92 gallon corner tank

[Tanked]

Hi all,

I realized the other day that I might have too much flow in my tank. My corals and fish have been doing well but I noticed that since I re-arranged the maxi-jets around, my hammer coral and frogspawn do not expand as much as they use to. Also, my fish, don't swim around that much and usually stay confined in an area that I believe has less flow.

The 92 corner is a difficult tank to manage when it comes to flow. You can direct a pump anywhere but it's likely to influence all areas of the tank because of its peculiar shape.

Today, I have four Maxijet 900 plugged into a Red Sea Wavemaster Pro Wave Maker and a Mag Drive Supreme as a return pump from the sump (about 4-5 feet upstream).

I'd like to get people's general opinon especially if you own a 92 corner (due to its odd shape, again). Would that generate too much flow ? How do you have yours configured ? Should I take out a Maxijet or two ?

Erik

 

[Tanked]

/me self bumps

 

[somaseven]

I've got the same tank as you.I'm actually in the process of breaking it down for the summer.I personally have had a lot of luck w/ lower water movement.My tank has been set up for 2 years as is & houses 2sps corals 4 lps , an anemone, & numerous soft corals along w/ fish, various species of shrimp, crabs & snails.I've got a 650 gph pump running back into the tank from my sump, and a rio 1100 moving water in addition to that.I think that's plenty of movement. You'll always have dead areas in your tank, & I think you need them.

 

[Tanked]

so that would be much less flow than my Mag 7 + 4 Maxijet 900, right ?

 

[cjburden]

Tanked... its tough to say if you have too much flow, but having too much flow is almost hard to do.

I don't see why you should have any less flow in a corner tank than in any other tank. And, while you may have an odd shape you are still moving the same volume of water around. With your wavemaster, how many pumps do you have going simultaneously, 2?

Even with all 4 going at the same time you are only turning the water over about 15x per hour, which is not all that much, and with only 2 going simultaneously you are at about 10x/hr. I think if anything you should just reposition the powerheads, but not take them out. I don't have experience with that shape tank, so I may be missing something here.... but it doesn't seem to me that you should have less flow, just different angling of the flow.

 

[Armando]

try placing the hammer and frogspawn in a place surrounded by rocks to protect them from the current. wait for a week and see if they expand more.

 

[NateHanson]

I think Borneman's book says the Euphylia sp. are more likely to develop long sweeper tentacles under direct high flow, so keeping them sheltered a bit will probably help your other corals as well.

Nate

 

[Tanked]

cjb, you say it's hard to get too much flow but having downsized to two Maxijet instead of 4, both the frogspawn and hammer now expand a lot more. We'll see how everyone fares.