Powerhead placement

Tim&Amanda · Jan 30, 2011

Right now we have our powerhead in the lower right corner of our 27gal cube tank. The pump is 750 gph and is facing to the side towards some live rock. Should we place it so it is facing forward and not blowing into the rock? Thanks guys!

skinz78 · Jan 30, 2011

Can you post a pic of it? Is it blowing directly on any corals where it is at?

Tim&Amanda · Jan 30, 2011

Hopefully this photo will be sufficient enough to tell. No corals as of yet. Thank you Skinz78 for the help!

KingRicky · Jan 30, 2011

I have always been told to aim the power head up toward the surface at the middle of the tank. I have mine that way and don't see any issues.

Troylee · Jan 30, 2011

It's not pushing tremendous flow so it shouldn't be a huge issue but I
Would place it where the water looks like it churning best and there's very minimal to no dead spots etc...

Dave3112 · Jan 30, 2011

KingRicky said:
I have always been told to aim the power head up toward the surface at the middle of the tank. I have mine that way and don't see any issues.

With only one power head thats what I would suggest. When you do get some corals just make sure it doesn't blow directly on them. AND Welcome to R2R!

aalvarado87 · Feb 1, 2011

just for comparison I have my two vortechs on each end of my tank one a little farther forward than the other. These guys really push some water I do have them toned down to about 70 percent. But I don't see the real issue with the flow being pushed towards corals. I mean there are some that love and it dislike you will learn as you go. I think it is okay if you have there to combat any dead spots behind the rocks and its not blowing your sand everywhere good luck

Captain Nemo · Feb 2, 2011

You may want to addnone more powerhead to try and move the water a hit more, especially once you start stocking the tank . Good luck

raymond · Feb 3, 2011

with a return line its not as important to point powerheads up towards serface because the return line and sump are breaking the serface enough, unless your tank is heating up, id get another powerhead and a cheaper wavemaker and everything will work out great

johnanddawn · Feb 3, 2011

i think your good for low flow corals - if you need more, another pump aimed back toward that one but higher up would create a nice water interaction

bulkhead · Feb 3, 2011

I often take a long piece of ridged air line tubing, hold it into the water with one end just behind the blades of the power head (where the water enters the power head) and blow air through the tubing. This will send a bunch of broken up bubbles through the water column giving you a bit of an in site on the flow through your tank. Then I weak the power head positioning and do it again until I'm happy with the placement.

Good luck! It is quite amazing the way water flow works through your tank. I have a lot of LPS corals in my tank that sway with flow. A small adjustment will affect a coral in the most remote location.

aalvarado87 · Feb 3, 2011

thats a pretty good idea i have never though of doing so this should show you where your dead spots are correct? I may just have to give this a shot. As i have a full sps reef i need to make sure i dont have a whole lot of dead spots.

bulkhead · Feb 3, 2011

Well.... the bubbles go fast and quickly go up as the current weakens. So, it is a good idea, but it's not foolproof.
You have to look fast. See if you can get your wife to blow the bubbles and you watch them.
If you can get her to do that...... your'da'man!
(post video too)

RonMidtownStomp · Feb 3, 2011

See my video:

YouTube - Reef tank flow demonstration

I overfed for the sake of making a flow video.

At the time of the video, that's a Barracuda closed loop with penductors plus a Tunze 6100. Where I mumbled at the end, I've since added a K4 and an MP40 and I'm much happier with the flow in that area. I'm also so glad reviewing this video that I got the frag tank set up and the frag racks out of the tank finally!!

You want to position the powerhead however you need to in order to get the most flow possible and I haven't found a way to do that with one Koralia. I tried two Koralia Evo 1400's in my 4x2x8" frag tank and it still wasn't enough so I had to add another K4 that I had lying around on the other end. I'm still not happy with it. The MP40 was cool in there, but it made quite the whirlpool because the tank is so shallow. My next batch of coral sales goes towards more MP40's.

You want to think in terms of creating a gyre, or circular flow pattern that's extremely efficient. I would worry much less about weird growth patterns due to unnatural flow until you have large acro colonies that you're worried about shaping off in one direction /// or \\\ and most won't do that anyway. It's unlikely that you're going to keep large acro colonies in such a small tank anyway.

Tim&Amanda · Feb 5, 2011

Great setup! Thank you for the advice. Are you propagating coral?

Reef Breeders · Feb 5, 2011

I just got rid of my last ph, I now use my 1000 gph return, which cretes a circular current throughout the entire tank.

RonMidtownStomp · Feb 5, 2011

I'm not sure what you're asking. All reef tanks are propagating coral. I'm set up to be able to have more than what's in my display tank, and I have a lot of frags. If we don't help propagate coral then we're only taking out of the ocean reefs. I'd like to be able to:

a) Have backups so if I lose a colony I can comfortably put something else in it's place.
b) Be sure I give more coral back to the reefing community than I'm responsible for taking out of the ocean
c) Sell and trade enough that I can stop leaking hundreds of dollars a month buying more coral.

RonMidtownStomp · Feb 5, 2011

anemonekeeper said:
I just got rid of my last ph, I now use my 1000 gph return, which cretes a circular current throughout the entire tank.

On how large of a tank? That must sound like you have a waterfall in your living room. My system is almost silent. Even if your tank is only 30 gallons, you'll have dead spots and detritus build up.

On the previous topic/question, my wife and I were able to take almost 30 frags to our last reef club frag swap. That was nice.