Water Flow

[Safedad]

I would like to move from FOWLR to adding corals. I am working on upgrading my lights and have good resources to read to figure that out. I haven't found a good source on water flow. Some corals need high, some medium, and some low. would someone point me to some resources and determining what this is? Would also like to hear how some of you achieve it and what you use to move/direct the water.
Thanks,
Bob

 

[Witfull]

in general, shrooms low to moderate indirect flow, zoanthinds moderate indirect or low direct flow, lps moderate indirect flow with cross current, sps high direct and indirecr flow with cross current.

 

[cracker]

I'm kinda in the same spot as You Bob. I'm about to add corals to my FOWLR. I have the lighting I need but not sure on what "proper flow " means. I think the more water flow the better. The fish like lots of water movement,keeps the junk from collecting in the lr and carries food to and wastes away from our corals. I'm going to try to get as much water movement as possible. The LR structure willl create areas of that High, moderate and low flows that coral you want needs.

 

[Craig Manoukian]

15 to 20 times turnover per hour of your tank's water volume is what is needed. For a 100 gallon water volume, net of LR and sand, that would be 1,500 to 2,000 in GPH flow. This can be broken up by many powerheads to provide the proper flows witful referred to.

 

[dragonladylea]

IMO your best resource is here on the boards, kinda the difference between learning by book and learning by life experience. There is alot of experience on these boards and since they have nothing to lose or gain (like LFS) your going to get the best information.

 

[cheeks69]

Some great resources:

Aquarium Corals : Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History by Eric Borneman

Corals: A Quick Reference Guide by Julian Sprung

Corals have very different requirements, light, flow, placement etc. so it can be difficult to keep a mixed tank, you need to do some research and you need to observe the corals carefully. Although 15 to 20 times turnover per hour of your tank's water volume may suffice for many of the soft corals and LPS it may not be good enough for SPS that require strong indirect flow.

 

[superman]

Err on the side of more flow, you can always dial things back or take out a powerhead or two. So shoot for high turnover (40x) and you can tweak things later on.

 

[Little Luey]

Go to liveaquaria.com; they tell you on the coral description what the requirements are.
For the most part, SPS need high flow and lots of light
LPS and softies not so demanding with flow and/or light
Zoantoids, Mushrooms at the low end of the flow and light requirements.

So consider 10X the volume of your tank as your low end of flow. I just put a closed loop on my 20gal using a mag5 (rated for 500gal/hr), I probably ended up with 400 gal/hr (about 20x) and I still don't think this is too much, before I had only about 300gal/hr and it was like nothing happening.