flow in DT - what is too much?

My tank is 90 gallon and has mostly softies in it. I have always ready 40x plus turnover in your DT for flow. I have 2800gph right now giving me around 31x.

i am in the middle of moving and packing and last night i turned off the two powerheads and fed the fish. i got busy doing other stuff and forgot to turn them back on. this afternoon i was looking at the tank and being amazed at how much my corals were out and how big they all looked. they honestly looked bnetter than i have ever seen. then i realized i left the powerheads off all night.

i turned them back on and considering what i saw began wondering if i had too much flow in the tank.

are the high flow requirements mainly for hard corals? should the soft corals have less flow? what i saw today is making me second guess everything i have read.

What do you guys with mainly softy tanks have for flow and have you noticed anything like this?

would a lower flow be bad for the fish?

any comments greatly welcome.

 

in my experience softies like less flow and they defiantly couldn't stand being blasted
you might just want to move them around instead of turning the Ph's off
mainly because detritus and such would settle all over your sand bed and rocks

 

Just to add to his statement, every coral is different. Some need a high flow and some dont. You need to research the corals that you have and make the necessary adjustments. I personaly never heard of 40+ turn-over in a DT. Luna

 

settlement on rocks and sandbed is one of my concerns if i lowered the flow. i just cant get over how much they were out with the lower flow. they looked great.

 

I agree with everything said already, but just wanted to point out that looking great doesn't necessarily mean its what's best for the tank.

That said maybe try experimenting with one powerhead off or something see how it works out?

 

Anemones can position themselves to find the perfect velocity of flow in a tank....
Unfortunately corals can not- and thus comes the tedious task of having to find the right spot for each coral. Leaving the flow at 31x is probably quite safe- you just need to move the coral around a bit so that it's not getting blasted at too badly.

 

IME most of the time, corals can adapt to a wide variety of flow situations. For softies it's ok to keep the flow at a lower rate 25-35 times turnover but as soon as you stick an sps in there, it's a whole different ball game as most of the time, sps need a much heavier flow pattern. Also zoas, polyps, leathers and several other softies prefer almost an sps type flow patter.

 

i hate to hijack this thread but im new too and ive been wonderin about flow myself ive got a 72 bowfront and have a korila number 4 its the only PH in the whole tank and it just seems to strong to me >,<