Low, Medium, and High Flow **The video series**

One thing I really struggled with starting out (and still do to some extent) is flow in my tank and matching it with the corals I wanted. It seems like there's a lot of information out there, but it is somewhat vague. You will routinely see that a coral wants "Med-High" flow for example, but no real explanation of what that means. You can also find ranges like 5-10x tank turnover is low flow, 50x tank turnover is high flow, etc., but you could have that much flow with poor powerhead placement and it still not work for your corals.

I'm a visual person, so I thought I would start a video thread to help others starting out in the hobby with their flow selection and powerhead placement. I'm hoping others will post videos in this thread as well, and maybe as a community we can come up with a more consistent definition of low, medium, and high flow.

So, break out your smartphones and video cameras and post away. If possible, include a FTS including your powerhead placement and some of your corals. Also, give a brief description (verbal or in text) of the coral and the type of flow you're trying to maintain for it. I'm hoping this also helps someone new to the hobby with selecting corals for their tanks as they can see the various corals in action in addition to the many photos that are out there.

Here goes...

I have a 150 gallon corner tank that has 2x 1600gph JBJ and 2x 500gph JBJ powerheads. I'm trying to maintain high flow in the back third of the tank for SPS corals, medium flow in the middle third for SPS/LPS, and low-medium flow in the front third for LPS/softies. I run my JBJ's through an Apex controller to create a random flow. The back right and front left JBJ go for 20 seconds (creates counter clockwise flow), then all four for 20 seconds, then the back left and front right for 20 seconds (creates clockwise flow), then all off for 20 seconds.

 

Great idea! I like the video. Very well layer out and informative.

 

Super great video. To bad I cant add my info until my build is complete.

 

Great video, and an excellent idea. Should be made a sticky.

 

Agreed! Awesome polyp extensions

 

Great video and write up. Only suggestion I would have is during each round maybe pop up text to show which and when each ph group is active. Or better yet, a small diagram in the corner with green phs for active and red for inactive. Certainly agree a sticky should be made for this.

 

Thank you everyone!

@Epsilon - I agree on matching PH timing with the video. Thought about that as I was editing, so I just have each coral shown in the video for about the length of a wavemaker cycle as a substitute.

I thinking narrating as you're filming would be the easiest way to do it.

 

Bump for the evening crowd. This could be a very useful thread.

 

Very clean looking tank.

Everything looks great!

HOw long will the back walls stay blue? Do you scrape it to? Reason I ask my back wall is covered in layers and colors of coraline.

 

That's a great question. I haven't had to clean them too much yet because I have minimal coralline growth so far. However, I'm starting to get quite a few spots. The tank is acrylic, so I just use the acrylic safe pad. The film algae comes off easy enough, but the coralline not so well. I'll have to see how much effort it takes to keep the front glass clean and then decide on the back glass. ;D