flow rate

Discussion in 'Coral Health' started by jarrettd123, Oct 19, 2009.

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  1. jarrettd123

    jarrettd123 Astrea Snail

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    is there a formula or standard for flow in a tank. I have two korilla 1 pumps in my 26 gallon bow front. which is equal to about 800 GPH I was thinking of putting seio m620 to give a more even flow and hit dead spots with the korillas. would this be over kill ?
     
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  3. steve wright

    steve wright Super Moderator

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    jarrettd123

    It depends to a great degree on what you are keeping - a tank full of SPS corals for example could easily tolerate more than 50 x your tank volume per hour in water flow- so thats 26 x 50 = 1300 GPH - without any problems

    a tank full of LPS corals or other fleshy corals may well struggle at flows this high unless you can spread that flow about and still achieve some calmer areas (difficult to impossible IMO in a 26 gallon tank)

    sometimes there are no definitive answers as all tanks and inhabitants and rock structure etc are different

    but its fair to say that a larger number of small pumps is better than a smaller number of large pumps

    Steve
     
  4. GuitarMan89

    GuitarMan89 Giant Squid

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    I've found that as long as you don't continually blast a coral, they should be fine. I have a frogspawn that gets pretty heavy flow occasionally, but it changes from low, medium to high flow every few minutes. ( I use a Vortech MP-40).
     
  5. Av8Bluewater

    Av8Bluewater Giant Squid

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    Well said above. What type of corals are you going to keep?