No sps coral growth difference between low and high flow

[acropora4u]

On YouTube. BRS did a 4month study On the corals under low flow condition and higher flow condition and there was no difference in growth or health of the corals between either low or high flow it was the same.....is everyone wasting our time and money on high flow tanks

 

[BornHandy]

I have been thinking so. In fact, my opinion is that the natural turbulence in my tank (generated by my return pump) is plenty of "varried flow". My corals all seem happy and healthy without additional powerheads.

 

[Auquanut]

I did notice better growth and polyp extension with my acros with increased flow. Maybe it's not so much the flow as distribution of nutrients. All of our tanks are set up differently. I've got a long 125 with a lot of rock work, and maybe by increasing flow the corals reacted favorably more to the better distribution of nutrients than the increased flow. Something to think about.

 

[sawdonkey]

I don’t think flow is as important as some make it out to be. I used to grow out frags in my sump and there was almost no flow. Just the return water coming down from the DT. The frags down there grew great and always had better PE too.

 

[motortrendz]

I really think higher flow feats a stronger denser coral colony as it grows. And even though it was about a 5% higher rate of growth In the higher flow. That will compound over time... just a theory and thought.

 

[acropora4u]

This was 33 turnover per hr vs 133 per hour turnover ... no difference.

 

[acropora4u]

I have 75 times per hour turnover

 

[saltyhog]

This was 33 turnover per hr vs 133 per hour turnover ... no difference.

I didn't read the study, are you saying the "low flow" tank had 33 times it's volume in flow per hour?! There were just two tanks in the study? Were the tanks plumbed together?

I agree with the post above that higher vs lower flow will definitely affect growth morphology. This was one study and I don't think we should take anything to the bank off of one not well controlled study.

I'm sure there is a sweet spot in flow even among different species of stony coral, one size fits all rarely applies. There are also other advantages to high flow, like reducing detritus accumulation.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Interesting...could be... I think flow helps keep things clean and food suspended in the water column, so maybe that's the only real benefit?

 

[SoCalVictor]

Maybe another question is: "is there a such a thing as too little flow"?

 

[jamie C]

yea I do not believe high flow is necessary for a reef tank. have flow in between the rock structure to keep dead areas from being there is more important. a decent turbulence in the water will get the job done and keep plankton supplements suspended in water more consistently. I am going to try a generalized soft turbulent tank in my 525xl I just setup. ill document the results in 3 months.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

yea I do not believe high flow is necessary for a reef tank. have flow in between the rock structure to keep dead areas from being there is more important. a decent turbulence in the water will get the job done and keep plankton supplements suspended in water more consistently. I am going to try a generalized soft turbulent tank in my 525xl I just setup. ill document the results in 3 months.

I'll be interested to see how it goes

 

[saltyhog]

OK, I looked at the video. I have a lot of problems putting much faith in this "study"

1. In the first phase the "low flow" tank had 66X volume flow. In my tank that would be roughly 10,600 GPH which is just slightly more than I have. Any more than that and I can't keep sand even with larger size sand. I would not call that a low flow tank.

2. Each phase was two months with brand new frags...I'm surprised they had as much growth as they did in that short time.

3. I would have plumbed the two tanks together so that the only variable would have been flow.

4. The test wasn't at all repeatable as the two sets of tanks had significantly different results....at least in one phase as I recall.

5. In the first phase the difference in the high flow tank was 25% greater in one pair of tanks ( 19% compared to 25% as I recall).