How to determine flow for corals

[mike550]

I’m just starting to add corals to my tank — one Kenyan tree and one star polyp. Websites describe flow as “low”, “medium”, “high” etc. How can I tell where in my tank has “flow”?

thanks in advance.

 

[BeejReef]

Welcome Mike,

The low, medium, high is pretty subjective. Those are sturdy corals. Don't stress. If you have bits of rubble rock, glue the frag plugs to that and experiment putting them in different spots in the tank. Watch how they react.

It really depends on your tank size, number and type of powerheads, and the type of program (if programmable) you run.
A pretty typical setup is opposing powerheads on the sides, either set to random, or configured to ramp up as the other ramps down.

Try raising your powerheads up just a bit until they start sucking in air and pushing out tons of bubbles. You can watch where they flow, where they don't, and how fast. OR, give your fish a bigtime feeding with the powerheads on and really observe.

Basically, where the sand is nasty, you have less flow. Where the sand is shallow and has been blown away, you have higher flow.

Nice thing about the corals you've chosen is that you don't have to overdo it. The movement of the corals will be your best indicator of how the water is flowing.

Throw up a pic of your setup and I'm sure you'll get great feedback.

 

[DanH86]

I’m a newbie to corals too. My trick was that I made a mental note of how my torch was moving when at the lfs and then placed it in an area of the tank that gave it a similar movement. Just over a week later and it looks happier than ever; during the day it extends about 30% more than when at the lfs.