drmantistoboggan
Active Member
- Joined
- May 17, 2020
- Messages
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Hi everyone,
I'm a little confused over what type of flow I need for my tank. Everyone seems to constantly say you want more and more flow. I have a waterbox 80.4 frag tank as my display. The tank is 4 feet long but only about 12 inches tall. I have been utilizing equipment from a previous 120 gallon build. I am running a varios 6 pump and have an icecap gyre 3k on the short side of the tank flowing length wise. The 3k, even at low settings seems like overkill (very easily kicks up sand and creates dunes since there is only 12 inches of tank space and I have a 1.5-2 inc sand bed), I have blocked a good chunk of the gyre's flow with rocks to compensate for this but it feels like it kinda defeated the point. My varios pump isn't working that great anymore and I am in the process of replacing it (looking at the Sicce SDC 6.0).
I recently removed the gyre from the tank as I didn't like the way it looked and I currently don't have a lot of coral (Just a small frag of xenia). I was planning on getting some LPS and softies in the next few weeks which brought me back to flow. How much flow do I need for a shallow reef that is going to mostly be lps, mushrooms and softies? I want something that is very low profile as the tank is right in our living room of our small apartment. I was looking at the mp40 since they could be put on the back and are great for hiding cords but would this provide the right flow patter since it will be directed from front to back? Ideally I think you would want 2 mp10s but that's a lot of money. is a tank this shallow with two return nozzles pointed at each side able to generate enough flow from that alone to which I could just crank up my return pump? I also saw the vivid creative aquatics random flow generator return nozzles and wondered if those combined with cranking up my return pump would be sufficient?
How would you all handle flow in this type of tank?
I'm a little confused over what type of flow I need for my tank. Everyone seems to constantly say you want more and more flow. I have a waterbox 80.4 frag tank as my display. The tank is 4 feet long but only about 12 inches tall. I have been utilizing equipment from a previous 120 gallon build. I am running a varios 6 pump and have an icecap gyre 3k on the short side of the tank flowing length wise. The 3k, even at low settings seems like overkill (very easily kicks up sand and creates dunes since there is only 12 inches of tank space and I have a 1.5-2 inc sand bed), I have blocked a good chunk of the gyre's flow with rocks to compensate for this but it feels like it kinda defeated the point. My varios pump isn't working that great anymore and I am in the process of replacing it (looking at the Sicce SDC 6.0).
I recently removed the gyre from the tank as I didn't like the way it looked and I currently don't have a lot of coral (Just a small frag of xenia). I was planning on getting some LPS and softies in the next few weeks which brought me back to flow. How much flow do I need for a shallow reef that is going to mostly be lps, mushrooms and softies? I want something that is very low profile as the tank is right in our living room of our small apartment. I was looking at the mp40 since they could be put on the back and are great for hiding cords but would this provide the right flow patter since it will be directed from front to back? Ideally I think you would want 2 mp10s but that's a lot of money. is a tank this shallow with two return nozzles pointed at each side able to generate enough flow from that alone to which I could just crank up my return pump? I also saw the vivid creative aquatics random flow generator return nozzles and wondered if those combined with cranking up my return pump would be sufficient?
How would you all handle flow in this type of tank?
