Lowering flow at night?

[Pvtgloss]

I keep my flow steady throughout the day and night. I've read where some people lower the flow at night. Does anyone do this? What would the benefit be?

 

[keatonmjenkins]

What were the reasons people were lowering flow at night?

I would think to mimic the ocean it would stay the same since that flow probably doesn’t change at night.

 

[salty150]

I know the moon has an effect on the tide...

But, other than that, I don't know...

 

[cleverrev]

Following

 

[Vinaka_vakalevu]

theoretically it mimics a diurnal tidal system with one high and one low tide a day so there is a programmed flow and slack during the day your mimic a "natural" tide cycle of flood ,slack, ebb, slack, flood, etc...


the java sea and Gulf of Mexico being two large areas with Diurnal tides versus the semi diurnal or mixed diurnal tides of most coastal regions.

 

[exnisstech]

I slow mine down at night. I vacationed on the beach the waves seemed to be calmer at night. Thats the reason I do it. I doubt that it really makes a difference either way.

 

[Vinaka_vakalevu]

I slow mine down at night. I vacationed on the beach the waves seemed to be calmer at night. Thats the reason I do it. I doubt that it really makes a difference either way.

that is more wind swell related than it is sub surface current and flow almost all of that shallow wind wave energy is used up in the top few feet of the water column.

 

[One Reefing Boi]

What were the reasons people were lowering flow at night?

I would think to mimic the ocean it would stay the same since that flow probably doesn’t change at night.

I’ve lived on the beach for my whole life, and currently live on oceanfront property. The ocean gets much much calmer at night. The waves turn to gentle rollers and the waves and currents by the surface are a lot slower. The wind dies down and they drives most wave and surface action we see on our oceans.

Tides don’t really though. The tides are always going to be roaring though depending on their directions and things etc..

All that said though, I turn my pumps lower at night to a gentle lagoon mode. Also gives some fish less turbulence if they don’t burrow in a cave or something at night

 

[xDMike]

I've done it both ways but never noticed a difference in regards to the corals. I turn it down just a little bit just to help the fish at night.

 

[TX_REEF]

My understanding is that corals do not require as much flow over their tissues when they are not photosynthesizing, and as someone else said it lets the fish relax to lower the flow at night. That being said, I do reduce the flow from 40% reef crest to 15% lagoon on my MP40s at night. I do however have them both run at 80% short pulse mode for 5 minutes prior to lights on to help suspend any detritus that may have settled during the low flow night mode.

 

[areefer01]

There can be calm evenings and storms. Having done a few night dives over reefs there is still current below. I have even aborted dives due to them being so strong that it was unsafe to continue. And that was a drift dive.

Flow is important even in our reefs. While we can't replicate real world conditions due to confinement it probably doesn't hurt to lower it at night. We don't want stagnant but a gentle flow would be nice. Every system will be different of course due to rock work, substrate, and coral size.

I personally switch to random flow at a lower intensity but middle of the road variance.

 

[keatonmjenkins]

I know on night dives that current below still seems pretty rough and doesn’t seem to change much.

 

[Reef.]

Some actually turn them up at night, the thinking being the corals are all tucked away at night so turning up the flow would help with detritus removal.

 

[Freenow54]

My understanding is that corals do not require as much flow over their tissues when they are not photosynthesizing, and as someone else said it lets the fish relax to lower the flow at night. That being said, I do reduce the flow from 40% reef crest to 15% lagoon on my MP40s at night. I do however have them both run at 80% short pulse mode for 5 minutes prior to lights on to help suspend any detritus that may have settled during the low flow night mode.

I defiantly found all coral are different as to flow. I would not mind shutting off the powerheads at night but not during the day. I have discovered at least without reading it first that algae grows better with high flow and light. Since I now have a Diamond Goby I want to grow its food for it ( free )

 

[darrick001]

I lower mine to 5% from1:30-3 . This is to give the plankton in my tank a calm time to feed on the phytoplankton. Is it necessary idk ,but my plankton are everywhere. If I shine a light into the caves I carved into the rocks, you can see them swimming. This probably wouldn't make a differnce if your running a skimmer that removes a large portion of your plankton in its swimming phase. It's seems to be working so I'm going to keep it going. I also turn my flow down from 5-6 pm March 18-25, June 18-25, Sept 18-25, and Dec 18-25. That's when my rockflowers usually spawn.

 

[Freenow54]

That is something new and interesting to me. Thanks

 

[Wasabiroot]

Some actually turn them up at night, the thinking being the corals are all tucked away at night so turning up the flow would help with detritus removal.

Bingo. Most lps shrink up at night so won't be terribly affected, and any sps will gladly feed in heavy flow at night (though not necessarily exclusively). I turn my nero pumps up for a portion of the night. Plus all the fish are stationary or tucked away (having a clown, gramma, goby etc, they love wedging into rock structure or corals).

 

[GlassMunky]

theoretically it mimics a diurnal tidal system with one high and one low tide a day so there is a programmed flow and slack during the day your mimic a "natural" tide cycle of flood ,slack, ebb, slack, flood, etc...


the java sea and Gulf of Mexico being two large areas with Diurnal tides versus the semi diurnal or mixed diurnal tides of most coastal regions.

arent there usually 2 high tides a day and 2 low tides?

 

[jkcoral]

I crank the flow up pretty high for 2 hours or so around midnight. With a bare bottom tank, the high flow during this period helps stir up/remove gunk without beating up corals.

All of my fish are rock sleepers (a wrasse dominant tank) and so they don’t mind, they are wedged in there and snug in their cocoons.

 

[darrick001]

I like the idea of turning up the flow for a couple hours to clean the rocks, but I don't think my anemones would be happy.