Cube Flow

[Jahalu]

hello fellow cube enthusiasts. I am wondering what others use for flow, and specifically your placement of pumps. I am having a hard time eliminating dead spots. I have an mp40 on my 75 gallon. I have it on the back wall mid-tank. But I am battling cyano on the back of my tank and a little it towards the back on each side. The front is perfect. Any thoughts? Not thrilled about putting a pump on sides of cube. Let me know what you've had success with. I'm finding It more difficult to predict flow patterns with the cube geometry.

 

[FL_Reefer]

I'm running a MP-10 and a MP-40 on my 60 cube. They are both on the back wall. MP-40 is about 5" from the top and in the middle running on wave mode 70% strength and the MP-10 is half way on hight and 6" from the left side of the tank, running at 100% on reef crest mode. The MP-10 creates a good undertoe in my tank. The MP-40 towards the top of the tank creates a good wave motion aswell. hoe this makes sense, lol I think you would be good just adding another powerhead to the rear of the tank and I may solve your problem. I too do not like the look of powerheads on the sides or front of my tanks. You do have to run more though to not have any there IMO.

 

[Winschuc]

Cube flow can be tricky. What I've found to work best is aiming for a gyre type flow pattern. On my 93, I keep two MP-10 and one RW4 on the back panel. The 10's are staggered, 1 low and one high. The RW is on the bottom aimed 90 degrees at the corner. This lets the flow hit the front and pull under the rockwork to the RW (this is also a BB tank, so I'm pushing nearly 100% on my MP's).

On my 150DD, I've currently got 2 MP-40's on opposite sides, off-center from each other. I'm also pushing nearly 800-900 GPH through the return for agitation in the top third of the tank. It's difficult to get a gyre with the way my rock is situated, so i just try to keep the detritus off the rock and depend on my CUC for the rest.

With cube tanks, since most of our rock is in tighter groups, we almost benefit more from having more flow ricochet off the opposite sides than we do from the wide patterns.

 

[Jahalu]

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to look into getting a smaller power head for the opposite side. I'd love to go with an mp10, but I have 1/2" glass. I tried one early on and it just vibrated like crazy. Ideally, I think 2 mp10s would have been perfect, but I'll have to try something else.

 

[Jlewis]

I use 2 rw8 in my 93 cube one on back the other on the side alternating pulse on the 2nd speed and still get a sand storm may have to add so e crushed coral to hold the fine sand in place

 

[bassgod]

I have 1 x rw8 on a 60. Not happy with the flow. Possibly dude to my aqua scape. Going to try a gyre soon.

 

[Katrina71]

Bump an old thread...any input on a 93 cube with center overflow? I plan on gyres on the back wall on each side and power head added on the side if needed