Often people underestimate how much flow is required in a marine tank, or rather they never get to see the benfits of adequate flow as they are scared of overdoing it.
Don't get me wrong, there are some fish out there (seahorses for example) and sessile organisms and plants that do better without seemingly brutal amounts of flow. For things such as lps you can cut the flow, or place them in sheltered locations in your hopefully admirally aquascaped tank ( that does not look like a fruit stall) with plenty of features to create sheltered areas.
However for many organisms a whole load of water movement is not going to hurt, and for some things it is a positive advantage. For instance if your interestes extend to tangs, anthias, fairy wrasses, chromis and plenty of other fish, and the obvious suspects for sessiles (SPS< zoanthids, colonial polyps, clams and so on) these organisms are used to, and can deal with flow that when diving will be a positive menace. I have seen some pretty stern currents when diving, but have never felt the current in my aquarium is likely to kill me! Most organisms are caught from shallowish water in what are considered medium flow (6 - 20 cms per second) enviroments. If you've seen a high flow enviroment you will realise it is not practical to hope to reproduce this in the home aquarium ( up to 1 metre per second velocity)
Right now in my tank I'm up to approx. 50 times per hour turnover. This seems a lot, but my stock of pretty ordinary fish seems to handle it pretty well. Some fish still swim in open water, my wrasse, angels and clowns still stick close to structure.
What I'm saying is be sensible, you don't want a washing machine effect, but don't be scared of having your fish or inverts swept away and destroyed.
What that means is that rather than having one great big parallel flow organise your flow so it becomes turbulent and changing, rolling. Point powerheads to cross flow. Use 'propellor' style pumps rather than traditional powerheads if you can get/afford them. Split and direct the flow from your return pump, again to cross, interfere and bounce against other flow sources. With these new, high flow pumps (that are at the same time gentler, but carry further) it is now possible to really get to grips with wave maker machines - mine varys the flow from my main pump between 2500 and 5000 litres per hour on a 20 second basis. Previously some people considered wavemakers a p.i.t.a. as they were very limiting on pump efficiency - this is no longer the case. My flow is deliberately bounced off and around a rock pillar to improve turbulence.
The benefits of high flow are many. Better oxygenation. Better supply of food to sessile inverts. Excercise for your lazy fish. For me the favourite is that I believe it helpes with your filtration. By not allowing debris to settle it is more available for removal by mechanical means (inc. a skimmer), and less available as an algae fuel - one of the killer problems with hair algae is it traps debris - not any more. Also increased flow across your now debris fre LR will allow 'normal' fltration involving the nitrogen cycle to proceed better.
Don't get me wrong, there are some fish out there (seahorses for example) and sessile organisms and plants that do better without seemingly brutal amounts of flow. For things such as lps you can cut the flow, or place them in sheltered locations in your hopefully admirally aquascaped tank ( that does not look like a fruit stall) with plenty of features to create sheltered areas.
However for many organisms a whole load of water movement is not going to hurt, and for some things it is a positive advantage. For instance if your interestes extend to tangs, anthias, fairy wrasses, chromis and plenty of other fish, and the obvious suspects for sessiles (SPS< zoanthids, colonial polyps, clams and so on) these organisms are used to, and can deal with flow that when diving will be a positive menace. I have seen some pretty stern currents when diving, but have never felt the current in my aquarium is likely to kill me! Most organisms are caught from shallowish water in what are considered medium flow (6 - 20 cms per second) enviroments. If you've seen a high flow enviroment you will realise it is not practical to hope to reproduce this in the home aquarium ( up to 1 metre per second velocity)
Right now in my tank I'm up to approx. 50 times per hour turnover. This seems a lot, but my stock of pretty ordinary fish seems to handle it pretty well. Some fish still swim in open water, my wrasse, angels and clowns still stick close to structure.
What I'm saying is be sensible, you don't want a washing machine effect, but don't be scared of having your fish or inverts swept away and destroyed.
What that means is that rather than having one great big parallel flow organise your flow so it becomes turbulent and changing, rolling. Point powerheads to cross flow. Use 'propellor' style pumps rather than traditional powerheads if you can get/afford them. Split and direct the flow from your return pump, again to cross, interfere and bounce against other flow sources. With these new, high flow pumps (that are at the same time gentler, but carry further) it is now possible to really get to grips with wave maker machines - mine varys the flow from my main pump between 2500 and 5000 litres per hour on a 20 second basis. Previously some people considered wavemakers a p.i.t.a. as they were very limiting on pump efficiency - this is no longer the case. My flow is deliberately bounced off and around a rock pillar to improve turbulence.
The benefits of high flow are many. Better oxygenation. Better supply of food to sessile inverts. Excercise for your lazy fish. For me the favourite is that I believe it helpes with your filtration. By not allowing debris to settle it is more available for removal by mechanical means (inc. a skimmer), and less available as an algae fuel - one of the killer problems with hair algae is it traps debris - not any more. Also increased flow across your now debris fre LR will allow 'normal' fltration involving the nitrogen cycle to proceed better.
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JWright
